


Guardian Demon

by Candace_cn



Category: Darkiplier - Fandom, Septiplier - Fandom, jacksepticeye, youtube - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Septiplier - Freeform, YouTube
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-22 06:47:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 50,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8276599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Candace_cn/pseuds/Candace_cn
Summary: Jack is scheduled to die on October 17. It's been set in stone since before he was born, and no one ever misses their appointment with death. However, when a mysterious demon interferes and saves his life, all hell breaks loose, literally. And now, Jack's guardian angel Mark has to go and finish the job himself. And he really hates getting his hands dirty.





	1. Chapter 1

Sean McLoughlin didn’t expect to die today. Honestly he didn’t. But when his alarm, which had never failed to go off at precisely 7:05 each morning for the past year, rang at 7:15 a.m. instead, Jack knew something bad was bound to happen.

He blinked once, then rubbed his eyes and groaned. He’d had his morning routine down to the minute since he was a little boy. His skin started to itch in that way it did when circumstances were out of his control. Swallowing back the little wave of panic that was rising in his throat, he forced himself out of bed.

“Dad, you’re going to be late,” he shouted as he ran down the hall to the only bathroom in the tiny apartment. “The power went out for a few minutes last night or something. Put me back ten minutes.” He didn’t know why he bothered. Nothing he could say would make his dad do anything faster than he wanted to.

He scrambled to turn on the shower, the water almost instantly warm. “Small blessings,” he mumbled to himself, stepping into the soothing stream. The only problem with water this warm was that he never wanted to leave. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, the stream turned icy and he shrieked. He poked his head out of the shower to see if his dad had flushed the toilet. Seeing no one, he quickly scrubbed his hair and fled the shower in record time.

Stepping into the hallway, he noticed his dad’s bedroom door still shut. He sighed and pounded on his door. “Dad,” he called, “you can’t be late again. Uncle Jerry’s only going to put up with so much.” His hand hovered over the door, but he heard no response from inside.

Returning to his room, he pulled his work uniform from the door and pulled the faded, yellow polyester shirt over his head. Already living paycheck to paycheck, his father couldn’t afford to lose another job.

He rushed to the kitchen, silently hoping the automatic coffee maker had brewed on schedule. He smiled when he smelled the familiar brew. At least something was going right this morning. The coffee, to his surprise was ready to go in a travel mug, milk and sugar already poured in.

Strange, he thought. Maybe his dad made it for him while he was in the shower. “Dad, are you home still?” he asked, hoping he’d already left for work. He was pretty sure Uncle Jerry would die of shock if his dad actually arrived early to the construction site.

He checked the clock on the coffee maker. It flashed 7:45. He breathed a sigh of relief. He could catch the bus and still make his shift on time. He went to grab his bus pass and froze. His dad’s keys were still on the counter.

“Dad?” he called, now concerned.

He reached his room in five easy steps. “Dad, come on. I know you didn’t get home until late last night, but you have to get up.”

No response.

He pushed the door open expecting—well, he didn’t know what to expect. He’d seen his dad passed out on the floor after having a bit too much the night before. He’d seen him up and staring out the window with blank eyes, not moving or talking, just staring. He hoped he was just hung-over. That side of his dad he could deal with. That was something he could handle.

What he was not expecting to find was his dad lying flat on his back, hands by his sides, corpselike, eyes closed, not breathing. He was by his side in a second, shaking him frantically.

Suddenly, he heard laughter coming from the corner of the room. 

Jack screamed and squinted his eyes toward the voice. He couldn’t quite make out the shape. It looked like an out of focus photograph rather than a person. “Who’s there? What did you do to my dad?” he asked the voice shrilly.

The laughter stopped abruptly, and the shape started to come into focus, revealing a young man with bright red hair and tanned skin. What caused Jack to begin trembling with fear were his eyes, shaped like a human’s but with oval irises like a cat’s and the darkest black in color. 

“Wh-who are you?” he struggled to get out, trying to keep his composure. “What did you do to my father?”

“You can see me?” the voice was casual, but laced with surprise. He stepped closer to Jack, and Jack could feel warmth coming off him like a heater.

Jack didn’t know what to do but he nodded anyway.

“And you can hear me?” he asked.

Jack nodded and stood to his feet, suddenly resolute. “I don’t know what you want,” he said, his voice sounding surprisingly confident, “but we don’t have any money. We don’t even have a TV. Just please leave us alone.”

“He’s not dead, you know,” the red haired thing said with a flippant gesture toward his dad. “I’m not allowed to kill you guys. I just needed to delay you this morning by a couple minutes. Had to make you late for work.”

Jack blinked at him. He slowly bent down and grabbed an empty beer bottle by his dad’s bed. He knocked it against the edge of the nightstand, trying to break it into ragged shards like he’d seen people do in action movies. It didn’t even crack. 

“Here,” the stranger sighed, rolling his eyes. He grabbed the bottle from Jack’s hand; the thing’s hand brushed his, and Jack noticed his fingers were warm, too warm for the cool morning. The stranger smashed the bottle into the dresser and half of it shattered into what would be a nice, threatening weapon if it were in Jack’s hands. As if reading his thoughts, the stranger handed him the broken bottle. “There,” he said smugly. “Better?”

“Not really,” Jack said honestly. He inched back toward his dad, bottle raised halfheartedly as he became more and more sure it would do no good if this stranger decided to harm him.

“He’s in stasis,” the stranger explained glancing toward his dad. Jack stared back blankly. “It’s like what you guys call frozen, I guess. But like frozen in time. No, not time. More like frozen between worlds. I don’t know. Something like that.”

“Well, can you, like, unfreeze him, please?” Jack snapped.

“Not with that attitude, darling,” he said, cocking his head to the side.

Jack glared at him.

“Fine.” He sighed like Jack had just asked him to do an onerous task. “But wait about,” he looked at the clock on his dad’s nightstand, “ten minutes. That should be enough time.”

“Enough time for what?”

He looked at him closely as if debating whether or not to tell Jack. The stranger leaned against the dresser haphazardly. Jack took a moment to study his features, trying to read his face but avoiding his uncanny eyes. He looked young, around his age or a little older. His black hair sported a shock of red at the top, which occasionally curtained his eyes. The way it waved slightly at the ends would have made him look adorable and innocent were it not for his eyes. He was dressed in tight jeans and a fitted red flannel shirt, but he wore flip flops despite the cold Dublin air. He glanced back up to his face and took fleeting comfort in the symmetry of it. He had full but small lips and a broad, straight nose. His skin looked soft, and Jack suddenly had the urge to reach out to touch it. He noticed the stranger was studying him as if he could read every expression that crossed his features. 

Jack looked away, suddenly afraid in an entirely new way.

“Aw, screw it,” the stranger finally said. “You deserve to know. But first, coffee. Come on, I’m sure the cup I made for you is already getting cold.” He moved toward the bedroom door, but Jack remained resolutely by his dad’s side. The stranger rolled his eyes at him. “Come on,” he said.

Jack shook his head. “Not until you wake him up or unfreeze him or whatever.”

“Fine,” he said irritably. “I’ll remove the stasis from him, but he might have to sleep it off for a few hours.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Jack mumbled, and the man had the audacity to smirk at his as if he knew anything about his life. He glared.

Jack skittered away as the man moved toward the bed. As he placed his hand against his father’s still chest, Jack visibly tensed. The stranger closed his eyes and whistled as if calling for a dog. “Come on, boy. Here, boy.”

“What are you—“

“Shh. You’ll scare him away.” Suddenly, a small smile twisted the corners of his mouth. “There you are, good boy. Come on out. Play time is over.”

An unearthly shriek came from his father’s chest. Ignoring the clammy feeling of revulsion that washed over him as he neared the stranger, Jack lunged forward trying to push him away from the bed. The stranger turned toward him sharply, and he gasped as he saw his eyes glowing completely red and as shining as traffic lights. “Stay back, Jack,” his voice was so low and so loud it rumbled the floorboards. Jack shuddered.

His father’s chest suddenly surged forward and his eyes broke open with a start, staring and empty.

“Aha!” exclaimed the stranger by his side. “There you are, you little sucker.” He was suddenly addressing something that was apparently caught in his hands. Though Jack couldn’t see anything, he felt the room turn suddenly cold, and he found it hard to breathe as though he were in a high altitude. “Go back home, buddy,” the stranger said fondly to whatever invisible creature he imagined he held. “I don’t need you here anymore, okay? But you’ve been a good boy, Sam. Yes you have,” he cooed as he twirled his fingers in what Jack assumed was a tickling motion. “That’s right. Off you go.” The stranger stood up from the bed. His eyes were back to the alarmingly black color, and his hair stuck to his sweaty forehead.

“See, good as new,” he said, gesturing toward Jack’s dad, and he stuck his hands deep in his pockets, leaning forward on the balls of his feet like a small child excited to show off his handiwork.

Jack put a tentative hand on his dad’s chest, feeling it rise and fall with the consistency of sleep. He smiled slightly as he heard his father begin to snore familiarly as he always did after a night of heavy drinking. He looked up to see the stranger studying him, his face unnerving and unreadable. He tried to maintain steady eye contact with him, but couldn’t, not with the stranger’s eyes the way they were.

“All good?” the stranger smiled smugly as if sensing his discomfort.

Jack stared at him. No, everything was not good, and a thousand questions suddenly flooded his mind. His mouth flapped open and closed in what he could only assume was a very unattractive manner. He had no idea where to begin.

Instead he said, “Coffee.”

The stranger nodded, and held the door for him, bowing theatrically. He walked past him and watched as the stranger gently pulled the door shut to his sleeping father’s room. As he stepped into the kitchen, Jack suddenly felt more alone than ever. He wished his dad were awake. He’d know how to handle this black-eyed madman.

The stranger sauntered into the room, doing a ridiculous little shimmy toward the coffee maker, and Jack couldn’t help but notice his nicely-shaped ass. Jack hopped up onto the counter and watched as the stranger reached into the cupboard, grabbing the coffee grounds without looking. He added water and set the coffee maker to brew.

He then leaned back against the opposite counter, tapping his fingers against the wood in an uneven rhythm. He never stood still, Jack noticed, but his eyes always remained fixed on Jack, expectant.

“Why—” Jack began. “I mean, how—did you know the coffee grounds were in that cupboard?” he asked pointing to the cupboard above the stranger’s head.

He stilled for the briefest moment before continuing to tap his fingers and smirked at Jack. “I know, I know, you have a million questions to ask me,” he said. “That’s really the one you’re going with?”

Jack shrugged. “I want to know.”

“Of course you do,” he mumbled almost too quietly for Jack to hear. “Do you want me to tell you honestly?”

Jack nodded.

He looked at Jack as if searching his face for the truth of the nod. The coffee brewed loudly to a finish. The stranger sighed before grabbing two mugs from a different cupboard. “It’s the same reason I know where your mugs are and that this,” he held up a mug with a crudely painted ‘I love my daddy’ adorning the sides, “is your dad’s favorite, and he hasn’t used it once since your mom died three years ago.”

“Lucky guess,” Jack said. That itchy feeling when he didn’t have control over his life crawled across his skin, and he scratched his arms.

“I hate when you do that,” the stranger said quietly.

“Do what?” Jack asked, testing him more than questioning him.

“Never mind,” the stranger said, and Jack didn’t press him. The stranger returned his dad’s mug to the cupboard and pulled out another mug for himself.

There was a prolonged silence as he poured them both a cup of coffee, fixing his up with just the right amount of milk and sugar. He noticed he held the mug by the cup part rather than by the handle, and Jack wondered how he wasn’t getting burned. He handed the mug to Jack, handle side facing him. 

Jack took the mug from him careful not to touch the stranger’s skin. He sipped the coffee, hating himself for sighing into the perfect beverage. The stranger stayed close to him, too close for Jack’s comfort, studying his face with uncanny, observant eyes.

“Who are you?” Jack asked slowly, lifting his gaze toward his.

“Name’s Dark,” he said quickly.

“Ok. But. What are you?” Jack asked again, not daring himself to look into those black eyes.

Once again, the stranger’s lips tweaked into a smirk. “Now you’re asking the right questions, Jackaboy. However, first, what I really want to know is how you, my dear Jack, can see and hear me,” he said, looking at Jack like he were a strange creature. Jack felt uncomfortable, but there was also something so strangely familiar about Dark. The canter of his voice and his uncanny eyes. It wasn't like he'd ever seen Dark before. Jack knew that, but it was like he'd always known him. The way Dark looked at him was uncanny, like he knew everything about Jack. It unnerved him. 

"What do you mean? I'm looking right at you," Jack said.

"And I look like one of you? Like human, I mean?" Dark asked, still staring at Jack, and Jack couldn't remember seeing eyes so inhuman in his life.

"For the most part, yeah. What else would you look like?"

"You wouldn't be alive if you saw me in my natural form," he said, smiling almost sadly.

"Why's that?" Jack asked, nervous about the answer he might receive.

"No need to worry your pretty little head about that," Dark said leaning toward him familiarly, almost flirtatiously, and Jack blushed despite himself. He took a sip of his coffee and hoped that would hide his flaming cheeks. The last thing he needed was for this madman to think he was affecting him like this.

"Your eyes though," Jack said, needing to look away, "they're not--like us. Not human, I mean."

"Oh? Oh! I think I can fix that," Dark said. He closed his eyes and when he opened them again, they looked normal, more human. Jack could see that they were still black, though not quite as dark as before, and they'd rounded from their catlike appearance to resemble the roundness of a human iris. "Better?" Dark asked.

Jack nodded dumbly. "So, it's like contacts, right? You're wearing contacts?" Jack asked hopefully.

Dark smiled slyly. "Sure, like contacts."

"And that thing you did with my dad. That was like drugs or something, right?"

Dark leaned against the counter next to Jack bracing himself with one arm, crowding Jack who was still perched on top of the surface. He reached to touch Jack's thigh but stopped himself. Jack exhaled a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "Yeah," Dark said, "like drugs or something."

Jack nodded, feeling oddly calm despite what he was about to say. "You're not human, are you?"

Dark backed away and leaned against the opposite counter, fingers drumming a little rhythm. The corners of his mouth stretched in a wicked way. "Good boy," he said condescendingly, and Jack couldn't help but glare at him. Jack took a long sip of coffee and was somewhat glad to feel it scald his tongue.

"Okay," he said.

"Okay?" Dark confirmed.

"Yeah," Jack said, his voice deadly calm. "But you need to leave right now."

Dark's smile vanished and something close to hurt crossed his features for a brief moment. "I can't do that, Jack."

"No, you need to leave. I need to go to work and you need to leave my dad and me alone." Jack was shaking, he could feel his skin prickling. "Because either you're crazy or I'm hallucinating or both, but you need to leave, or I'll call the police." Jack stepped toward Dark and wrenched the mug from his hand. It was still scalding hot and it shattered to the floor. His hand shook, and he began scratching at his arm nervously.

"Jack," Dark said softly, stepping dangerously close to him, hand raised to stop Jack from hurting himself, but not quite touching him. Jack could feel the heat radiating off Dark, warmer than before, and his eyes stared into Jack's, ominous and commanding and powerful. "I hate it when you do that. Don’t. Hurt yourself," he said. It wasn’t a request. It was a command.

Jack glared at him. "You need to leave."

"No," Dark said firmly and stepped away. Jack froze, feeling the full force of fear that he'd been holding back since he'd first woken up late this morning. He suddenly realized how dangerous this situation really was, how much damage this stranger could do to him and his dad. He forced himself to look into Dark's black eyes, and he could almost see himself staring back, small and afraid, in their reflection. Though his black eyes still unnerved Jack, he took a small comfort in the fact that underneath Dark's confident exterior, he looked nervous, like this was a foreign experience for him as well.

"Why not?" Jack finally managed to say.

"Why do you think your work hasn't called you yet, wondering where you are?" Dark asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You're nearly an hour late, and for you, who's never been late a day in his life, that's a big deal. So why hasn't your boss called you, upset and concerned about your absence?"

Jack swallowed hard. "I don't know," he said honestly. Work hadn't crossed his mind since he first saw his father this morning.

"You should turn on the news, Jack."

Jack didn't know if it were his unnatural calm or the fallen coffee that was currently seeping into his sock, but he stopped scratching his arm and picked up the remote off the coffee table. Flicking it on, he found a local news broadcast. A young female reported held a microphone close to her face. She was saying something, but Jack couldn't concentrate. All he saw was the scene unfolding behind her. It was the restaurant he worked at, up in flames.

He forced himself to listen to what she was saying. "We're here live at the scene of the fire where apparently a gas line came loose and caught fire creating an explosion that reportedly injured four employees and two customers. I'm here with the owner of Patty’s. Sir, how are you feeling in this aftermath of this accident?"

Jack felt an arm ghosting against his lower back, leading him to sit down on the couch. He was faintly aware of Dark sitting next to him, close but never touching. His boss appeared on screen, his face, normally kind, his eyes normally sparkling, looked tired and heartbroken. "It was no one's fault," he was saying, "just an accident like could happen to anyone. My thoughts go out to my employees and customers. I'm just so grateful no one was killed. It's a miracle, really. These people are my family. They're my family and," his voice broke, "and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

The reporter segued back to the head reporter who said, "We certainly wish the best for all those affected by the accident. Now to weather--" The TV shut off and Jack looked to see Dark looking at him intently, biting at his lower lip with a concerned expression. "I should have been there," Jack said. "I could have fucking helped. I could've--"

"You would have died. You were supposed to die," Dark said simply.

"You can't know that."

"Yes, I can, Jack. This day has been planned since before you were born. You were supposed to die today." Dark patted Jack on the shoulder, his touch burning through his work shirt. "Sorry," Dark said awkwardly.

"You made me late for work."

"I had to."

"Are you, like, my guardian angel or something?" Jack asked, suddenly imagined Dark with giant white wings. The image didn't fit.

Suddenly Dark was all bounce again, and he smiled at Jack. "Far from it. Saving people isn't really my department. That's Mark’s. Oh, he’s going to be very confused and very angry right about now." He sounded way too happy about that. "Which reminds me," he said, looking over his shoulder at the clock on the microwave, "he's going to be dropping by here any second now, so we should probably skeddadle." He hopped up off the couch and grabbed his dad's keys off the counter top.

"And if I refuse to go with you?" Jack asked from the couch. He craned his neck to watch Dark who stopped for a moment and looked closely at Jack.

"Oh, Jack," he said in a patronizing tone that annoyed Jack immensely. His eyes were impossibly black. "I broke up your date with death. You belong to me now."

Jack shivered.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

It was cold outside. Like, really cold. Though bundled in layers of mismatched scarves, a hoodie, and his warmest jacket, Jack shivered and glared at the strange man next to him who strolled down the sidewalk in flipflops and jeans.

Jack had barely had time to grab a small backpack full of clothes, his laptop, a journal, and what little money he had before Dark was shouting at him to hurry up because “Mark” apparently was coming for him.

“Maybe I want to meet this Mark,” Jack shouted right back at him. “Maybe he’s a better person than you.”

Dark didn’t respond and Jack thought he’d just dropped it, until he saw Dark suddenly standing in front of him, smiling wickedly. Jack swallowed and forced himself to avoid looking at Dark’s distracting eyes. “Oh,” Dark said, invading Jack’s personal bubble, something he had noticed was a common practice of his. “Mark is definitely a better person than me, but then again, pretty much everyone is a better person than me.” He sounded happy about that, like Jack had paid him a compliment.

Jack side stepped away from him, annoyed that he’d been slightly aroused by the dark-eyed boy’s proximity to him. It was stress, he told himself. Stress makes you feel crazy things.

Before they left, Jack had stopped in his father’s room to check on him. He was still sleeping soundly, and Jack tucked a note by his pillow letting him know that everything was ok, he was just staying at a friend’s house for the night. He took one last look at his father. He looked older, Jack noticed. The wrinkled lines which had once danced around the laughing corners of his eyes were now deepened into worried lines around his forehead and mouth.

“Bye, Dad,” he whispered before leaving, wondering when he’d see his dad again. Strangely hoping that he would. For all the trouble they’d had, Jack knew his dad loved him.

Jack turned toward the door to see Dark leaning against the threshold, staring at him, a mysterious, unreadable expression on his face. He met Jack’s eyes for a brief moment before shaking himself and saying, “You ready yet? You take forever to get ready, you know?” Jack could have sworn he heard Dark quietly say, “You always have,” but he was tired and distressed so it could have been his imagination playing tricks on him.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Jack said.

Now they were walking down the sidewalk away from the apartment building toward fuck-knew-where? Jack was cold and pissed that Dark had yet to explain where they were going. That and he really needed coffee since his had spilled his on the kitchen floor of his apartment. Yeah, that wouldn’t look suspicious to his dad at all, he thought to himself.

“Aren’t you cold?” Jack asked him, knowing he wouldn’t tell him where they were going but wanting to break the silence anyway.

“What do you think?” Dark said, smirking. He put his hand close to Jack’s chest, not quite touching. Even through his many layers, Jack could feel the warmth from him. It felt good in the icy weather. Really good, and Jack unconsciously leaned forward into the touch. Dark wrenched his hand away from Jack, looking alarmed. “You shouldn’t—I mean, I don’t know if you should touch me. Last time—Never mind. Let’s just keep going.”

“What do you mean, last time?” Jack asked, but Dark had already begun to walk forward, and though the strange boy’s legs were short, he walked with such energetic bounce that he was already several lengths in front of Jack.

“God, you’re so slow, Jack,” Dark called, but Jack resolutely kept his slower pace just to annoy him.

They walked along in silence, Dark occasionally turning down a small alleyway to hop a fence as if afraid someone were following their trail. Jack began to tire, and he regretted not giving a shit about joining any sports for the last few years of high school. Dark, he noticed bitterly, was going strong like the fucking Energizer bunny or something. He checked his watch. It was already almost one o’clock, and he recognized the rumble of his stomach.

“Oh, fuck,” Dark suddenly said, stopping to look at Jack. “I forgot you guys get like hungry and tired. Umm.” He looked lost as to what he was supposed to do for mere mortals like Jack.

Jack looked around and was disappointed to find he didn’t recognize the area they were in. He rarely took the time to explore the city outside taking the bus to school and work. He saw a gas station a block down the street. “Maybe we could grab some food from up there?” he suggested.

“Ok, yeah,” Dark said.

They walked in silence to the gas station. Stepping inside, Jack noticed the lights flickering when Dark stepped over the threshold. “We got a religious one here,” Dark said, smiling. Jack didn’t comment. He looked at the gas station attendant, an elderly woman with a cross pendant around her neck. She nodded to Jack kindly.

After picking out a bag of chips, a questionable looking pre-packaged sandwich, and a bottle of soda, Jack stepped up to the counter to pay. “Do you, uh, want anything?” he asked Dark.

“I’m sorry, what did you say, sweetie?” asked the gas station attendant.

“I was just asking my friend if he wanted anything,” Jack explained to the clearly hard-of-hearing elderly woman.

Dark was smiling, wide and wicked, next to Jack. “So you are the only one who can see or hear me. I was beginning to wonder.”

“Your ‘friend’, of course, sweetie,” the woman said, looking worriedly at Jack.

“No, it’s not that, I just,” Jack saw Dark slowly lift a packet of gum from the counter and slip it into his pocket, winking at Jack. “Don’t do that,” Jack hissed at him. The woman continued to stare.

Dark ignored him, and hopped up behind the counter, rustling the postcard display.

“Oh, that draft again,” said the old woman, clearly trying to hurry Jack along. Jack watched as Dark approached the woman and whispered something in her ear, all while staring at Jack across the counter. His eyes were once again cat-like and midnight black. Jack glared at him, hoping his expression communicated something akin to, “Don’t you dare hurt her. She’s a nice lady.”

“Relax, ‘sweetie,’” Dark said, perfectly mimicking the voice of the old woman, and Jack shivered. “I couldn’t hurt her even if I wanted to. I’m just planting a little doubt in her about her precious faith, because a demon’s gotta’ eat, too, doesn’t he? And I’m getting some of these.” He reached behind the old woman who was staring blankly forward with glassy eyes and pulled out two packs of cigarettes and a lighter. “I’d offer you some, but I know you don’t smoke.”

Dark hopped back over the counter, and stepped outside the door. As if on cue, the lights stopped flickering and the woman shook herself back to reality. A single tear slipped down her cheek. “Oh, dear,” she said, swiping at her eyes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Just being a silly, old woman, I suppose. I’m sorry, sweetie. Here, let me ring you up.”

Jack quickly paid for his food, and before he left, he reached across the counter and touched her hand. “Hey, it’s going to be all right,” he told her. He wished he could tell himself the same.

Her eyes shot up toward Jack’s, and they were suddenly hard and tortured. “Why would God take him from me?” she cried. “He was a good boy, and God just snatched him from my hands. Why would he do that?”

“I don’t—I don’t know. I’m so sorry.” Jack didn’t know what to do or say. The woman was in hysterics, and Jack hated himself for grabbing his bag off the counter and rushing toward the door.

Dark was leaning against the side of the building, casually smoking a cigarette. His eyes had turned round and less dark but still so far from human.

“Hello, sweetie.”

“What the fuck did you do to her?” Jack practically shouted, reaching out to push Dark off his feet. Dark backed away smoothly before Jack even got close.

“I’m a demon. It’s what I do. Besides, it’s not like I hurt her.”

“But you did, Dark. You hurt her more than if you’d slapped her. You fucking tore her life apart with a couple words.” Jack was breathing heavily.

“It’s what I do, Jackaboy,” he repeated, explaining rather than apologizing.

“As a demon?”

“I don’t know how to be anything else,” Dark said with what could have been regret had Jack not known better. 

Jack felt suddenly very tired, and he slunk down against the side of the gas station. He opened his soda and took a long sip. The carbonation tingled down his throat and calmed him. Dark was staring at him intently, clearly waiting for Jack to say something.

“You don’t eat?” Jack asked.

Dark shook his head. “Demon’s subsist on human auras. What you call ‘good people’ have the brightest auras which means they have the farthest to fall. But it’s no fun anymore, Jack—” he stopped to slide down next to Jack, looking like a kicked puppy. “It takes so little to tear a person apart nowadays. There’re so few really good people left in the world. And those who are, like that lady in there, are no fun to tear down. It’s just too fucking easy, you know?” He took a long drag on his cigarette. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Jack should have been disturbed, should have run as far from this demon as he could, really he should have, but he just nodded back at Dark, watching him as he brought the cigarette up to his lips. Maybe he was numb from cold or maybe he was still dreaming, but Jack decided to accept what Dark said as truth.

“What does my aura look like?” asked Jack before he could stop himself. He instantly regretted his words.

Dark stopped smoking and stubbed the cigarette butt into his palm, smiling as it left a black scorch mark before disappearing back to skin color. “It’s beautiful,” he said quietly, and it was the most honest he’s ever sounded. Jack felt his cheeks flare as Dark’s black eyes burned into his. Finally he looked away, cleared his throat, and said, “Unfortunately, that means there are a lot of other demons and a few angels that are going to try to get to you now you’re unmarked. You’re hot stuff in the underworld, let me tell you.”

“Unmarked? What does that mean?” Jack asked.

“You were supposed to die this morning, Jackaboy,” Dark said, and Jack both loved and hated the familiarity with which Dark uttered the nickname. “No one ever misses their appointment with death. Your guardian angel makes sure of that. And because I stopped it from happening, you don’t belong to heaven or hell anymore. You’re unmarked until someone claims you.”

“Why did you save me?” Jack asked.

“I didn’t save you. I merely stopped you from dying,” Dark was quick to answer, defensive in tone.

“Well, then, why did you stop me from dying?” Jack watched Dark’s face closely. He hated that he couldn’t read his expressions. What was he thinking? What did he want with him? Dark licked his lips and shook his head.

“I can’t tell you that.” Dark scuffed his flipflop against the concrete. “But I can tell you that Mark is coming to collect on your soul, and he’ll try to do it soon to avoid losing his job.”

“That means he’s trying to kill me? Isn’t he supposed to protect me, like a normal guardian angel?”

“Yeah, up until the moment you die. He’s there to make sure you’re protected from everything that might kill you right up until that moment. Plus, I’m sure he’s anxious to finish up with your case because he’s long-due for a vacation. Poor Mark’s been in this shithole for almost six hundred years mostly because he sucks at being a guardian angel,” Dark laughed almost fondly. “Fortunately for you, he’s a terrible tracker, so we have some time before he catches up with us.”

“Oh joy,” said Jack dryly. He was quite proud of himself for how well he was handling everything thus far. He imagined later he’d start to panic, but for now, he was ready to keep trecking. He stood up from the ground and dusted off his jeans. The sun had begun to peek through the clouds, and it energized him if only a bit. “I don’t suppose there’s any way you’ll tell me where we’re going?”

Dark bounced up shaking his head back and forth. “The less you know the better in case Mark can still read your intentions.”

“Read my intentions?” Jack asked.

“Guardian angels can’t read your thoughts, but they can tell what you intend to do. Makes it easier for them to stop you stupid people from doing all the stupid shit you do everyday that almost gets you killed—no offence,” he tacked on.

“None taken,” said Jack. He couldn’t really disagree with Dark’s sentiment. In his eighteen years of experience he’d pretty much come up with the same conclusion: stupid people on this planet doing stupid shit every day of their lives.

They walked further until they reached the edge of a bank of trees. Dusk was setting when Jack began to feel his phone vibrating in his backpack nearly incessantly. Was it his dad, or maybe his uncle or maybe his boss, calling to see why the hell he didn’t show up for work today? A wave of anxiety crawled across his skin, and he unconsciously reached to scratch his arm in a nervous gesture he’d had since childhood. His short nails dug deep into his skin until he felt them break the skin.

Dark stopped suddenly and turned toward Jack as if he’d felt the pain himself. “Fuck, Jack, why?” He was standing close in front of him, his hand reaching toward Jack’s arm but stopped himself from touching his bare skin. Jack looked to see Dark’s eyes were slitted and predatory. “You know Mark can track you easier if he knows you’re injured. His guardian instincts will kick in, and he’ll be here in minutes.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said, looking away from Dark, suddenly feeling like a small child once again.

“You can’t do this again.” It was a command, and Jack could feel it in his soul. There was no way he could say no, and that both frightened and calmed him. He nodded his head both voluntarily and against his will.

Dark looked satisfied with this and started walking again. Jack hurried after him, Several times, he tried to reach up to scratch his arm but was compelled to stop. Dark had said that he “belonged to him,” but Jack hadn’t thought about what exactly that meant. If Dark could control his impulse to scratch his arm, what else could he control? He wondered if Dark could do to him what he’d done to the poor gas station attendant. Remember again what had happened at the gas station, Jack glared at Dark’s form in front of him, currently hurling himself off a log onto a nearby rock. How could this ridiculous creature be a demon capable of ruining an innocent woman’s life with just a few words?

They reached a clearing in the woods, and despite the growing darkness, Jack could make out a small cabin resting in the center.

“What is this place?” Jack asked.

“It’s home for now; that’s all you need to know for now.”

Jack glared at his back.

Inside the cabin was—cozy, surprisingly so. It contained one bedroom and bathroom, a small kitchen, and a living room sporting a lumpy looking couch and even an old television set resting atop a small stand. It looked comfortable, lived in.

“Whose house was this?” Jack asked.

Dark looked at him slowly as if deciding how much to tell him. He shrugged. “A hunter who died in a freak accident a few months back.”

“Accident?” Jack asked.

“Essentially,” Dark replied, smiling slyly. “Anyway, there’s food in the kitchen, I’m assuming. You’re taking the bedroom so I can watch to make sure no monsters come to eat you during the night.” He made spooky hand motions toward Jack’s face. He went to swat them away, but Dark recoiled. “Be careful,” he warned, his voice suddenly low.

“Or what? You’ll be the monster that comes to eat me in the night?” Jack said, teasing, but seeing the dark, almost pained expression that appeared in Dark’s eyes, he lowered his eyes, and suddenly had the ridiculous urge to apologize.

Dark moved away from Jack as if not trusting himself to stand so close to him. “I’m going to have a shower, so you can make yourself food or whatever.”

“Demon’s shower?” Jack asked, trying to lighten the mood.

“Only the sexy ones,” he said and shook his ass theatrically as he headed into the bathroom.

That shouldn’t be attractive. Fucking demon, Jack thought to himself. He removed the scarf from his neck, and took off his outer layer, careful not to smear the blood on his scratched arm.

He heard the shower start and the image of Mark stripping off his tight shirt and pants, stepping into the hot shower, and slowly washing his body entered Jack’s mind unwillingly. He could almost hear Dark chuckling in his head. And oh my god, he was not going to do this right now.

Jack shook his head and searched the cupboards, finding an assortment of canned food items and, god-be-praised, a tin of instant coffee. He set about warming some canned ravioli on the gas stove, while he boiled water for the coffee. Once it was done, he sat on the couch and ate greedily, wondering how it was he had such an appetite after all the weird shit that had gone down today. He took a sip of his coffee and winced. It was terrible, but it was warm and strong, and Jack would take what he could get.

The door to the bathroom opened, and Jack tried not to look. “Goddamn,” Dark said loudly, “that felt so fucking good. You should try it, Jackaboy. You might like it.” He walked in front of Jack, a low slung towel hanging off his well-defined hips.

Jack swallowed a sip of bitter coffee. “Thanks, but I’m good.”

Dark shrugged and headed to the bedroom, closing the door behind him. Jack let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. His pants felt a little tighter than they had a minute ago, and he forced himself to breathe in and out and think of unsexy things like the fact that Dark was a fucking demon, and he shouldn’t be having these urges. 

Jack took a moment to pull his phone from his backpack. 14 missed calls. He checked to see that ten were from his dad, two from his uncle, and two from his manager at work. He couldn’t bring himself to listen to the voicemails, so he shut his phone and sighed into his coffee.

He felt, more than saw, Dark sit down on the couch next to him. “What’s the plan?” Jack asked him.

“I can’t tell you that.”

Jack sighed again. “I figured.” He turned to look at Dark, his head lolling against the back of the couch. Dark was fidgeting, drumming a beat against his thigh, looking around the room, and humming to himself. He was clothed in a ridiculous set of ducky pajamas and a loose, grey t-shirt. He smelled good, really good, and he felt warm, really warm. Jack was so tired and so cold. His head felt fuzzy, and he shifted closer to Dark unconsciously. Dark stilled perceptibly.

“Jack,” he warned. Jack wanted himself to stop and back away, but he felt himself continue to shift closer to the demon. Dark gazed back at him with narrowed eyes. Suddenly, Dark jumped up and ran a shaky hand through his hair, “Jesus, Jack, fuck. I’m so sorry, I think I was projecting on you, and look at your face, you have no idea what that even means.”

Jack’s head was suddenly crystal clear. He still wanted to touch Dark, but it was all his own urges this time. He wondered if he repulsed Dark. Why else would he be afraid to touch him? He’d said that Jack’s aura was beautiful, but Jack also knew that demons didn’t usually look like humans, and therefore, Dark probably wasn’t even attracted to his species, let alone him, an awkward, skinny eighteen year old kid. Jack hung his head. He really was just so tired.

“I think you should go to bed,” Dark said, and Jack nodded, too tired to argue. He set his coffee cup down on the table and headed toward the bedroom. He pulled a pair of sweats and a t-shirt from his backpack and changed as quickly as he could. The bedroom was small, smaller than the one in his apartment back home, but the bed was a full sized and looked comfortable enough. He slid under the covers and sighed at how good it felt.

Somewhere between waking and sleeping, he felt another presence enter the room and perch himself on the chair next to his bed. In his dream, Jack fell from heaven and saw black wings falling, falling after him, enclosing him in their warmth and a voice that whispered, “I’ve always protected you. I’ll never stop.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Preview-- Mark turned his head toward Jack. “You know, I’ll almost miss watching out for you. Life with you as my charge has certainly never been boring. But,” he sighed dramatically, “I’m five hundred years overdue for a vacation to Heaven, and you’re the only thing keeping me out at the moment. So yeah, I guess I’m here to kill you.”

CHAPTER 3

Jack awoke the next morning to see sun streaming in through the cabin window. He kept his eyes closed and stretched widely. The light warmed him, and it was bright, really bright, he could tell even through his closed lids. The morning air was still cool, and he scooted across the bed to position himself directly underneath the beam of sunlight. His trek to the other side of the bed was blocked, however, by something solid, lying on the bed next to him.

Jack’s eyes flew open, and he saw the brightest light he’d ever beheld, radiant and pristine and wonderful. It felt almost tangible. Jack couldn’t help but smile though he couldn’t fathom why. The light was comforting and peaceful at the same time. He stared at the light until it began to dim, and a face that was both totally unknown and strangely familiar appeared on the pillow next to Jack.

Jack took a moment to look at him before hurling himself backward off the edge of the bed, flailing onto the floor in a pile of blankets and long limbs. He looked around the room for Dark, but didn’t see the demon. Instead, in his place was a face that mirrored Dark in nearly every way. His hair was dark, but instead of the red, he had a light blue coif of hair piled wavily atop his head. His eyes were different too: lighter brown. Comforting. And so, so kind. His skin was tanned like Dark’s but emanated a radiance that couldn’t possible come from a human.

“Dark’s trying to make you breakfast or something,” said the light being as if reading his mind. “I wouldn’t count on any of it being edible though. Fucker never did understand basic human needs.”

Jack cleared his throat. “You’re—you’re Mark, aren’t you?” he said as confidently as he could despite the panic welling inside him.

The light-being stretched his arms behind his head and stared up at the ceiling in a relaxed pose. “That hurts, Jack, it really does,” Mark said in a wounded tone. “Not even recognizing your own guardian angel. I’ve saved your sorry ass more times than any other charge I’ve ever had. And not even a note of thanks.”

“But you’re here to kill me.” It wasn’t a question.

Mark turned his head toward Jack. “You know, I’ll almost miss watching out for you. Life with you as my charge has certainly never been boring. But,” he sighed dramatically, “I’m five hundred years overdue for a vacation to Heaven, and you’re the only thing keeping me out at the moment. So yeah, I guess I’m here to kill you.” 

Jack forced himself to breath in and out to calm himself. Ok, so he was going to die. He was supposed to die yesterday, but that didn’t work out so well, so he’d die today. No big deal. He’d had a pretty shitty life so far, so what did he have to lose? No boyfriend, only a handful of quasi friends, and a few bullies at school. He could leave all that behind, no problem.

He thought of his dad. He’d never really recovered from Jack’s mom’s death. Jack knew he’d only get worse if he died, too. Who knows, though? Maybe his life would improve without him there. Maybe everyone’s life would improve.

“Don’t start to freak out on me yet,” Mark said from the bed. “I can’t kill you right now.”

Jack’s head shot up. “Why not?”

Mark sighed and sat up cross-legged on the bed. He patted the seat in front of him. Jack felt like he had no choice but to haul himself up and join the angel. “So, you’re whole life, you’ve belonged to heaven, right? You were marked from birth as one of the ‘goodies’ as Dark calls them. I marked you myself; you were a cute kid, and not so bad now either,” Mark winked at him more fondly than flirtatiously. “But, when good old Dark over there decided to stop you from making your appointment yesterday, he marked you for hell, at least until I can fix the paperwork and get you a new appointment for heaven again.”

Jack stared at Mark blankly.

“Think of it like this,” Mark said, “Heaven is like an office where there’s a bunch of managers, in this case, my manager’s name is Felix. They are given charge over the fate of a few thousand human lives. They decide when you people will die and how. They write the date and time in stone and it is saved forever. Nothing can change it, because, we, the guardian angels make sure you guys don’t kill yourselves or something before that date.”

“Ok, so I missed my appointment,” Jack said, proud of himself for being so calm about all this. “You said I can get a second chance.”

“Yeah, you do eventually, but to make a new appointment could take months, like it does with any kind of paperwork, and until then, you are marked for Hell, which means you’re under Dark’s care for now.”

“So he’s going to kill me?” Jack was confused. If Dark had marked him for Hell why hadn’t he taken him there yet? What was his plan?

“I dunno. He wants you for something, and because he didn’t technically break any heavenly laws by making you late for work, I can’t stop him from whatever he’s planning. I’m sorry, Jack. I really wish I could help you.” And Mark did look genuinely saddened.

“For your sake,” Mark said, “I hope he holds on to you here on earth.” His soft brown eyes held Jack’s sadly. “If Dark takes you to Hell, he won’t be able to protect you from the other demons. With an aura like yours, your soul will be consumed in seconds.”

Jack shivered, and it had nothing to do with the cool morning air. Mark reached out a hand and touched Jack’s cheek affectionately. Jack leaned into the touch and felt energy and light flow through him like a balm.

“Thank you,” Jack said. “For being honest with me. And for, you know, protecting me.”

Mark laughed, full and hearty, and Jack felt instantly better. “You have no idea how hard it’s been. Fuck, man, you’re such a mess.”

Jack didn’t have the energy to feel offended, and he couldn’t really disagree with Mark anyway. 

“Thank God, Dark was there to help me out,” Mark said, sliding his bare feet onto the floor beside the bed.

Jack moved to stand up, but stopped short. “Dark was there, too? Watching me, I mean. For how long?”

Mark looked at Jack closely as if debating whether he should tell him the truth. “Dark and I go way back,” he said simply, not really answering Jack’s question. “Come on, you need to eat.”

As if on cue, Jack’s stomach growled, and he wondered if maybe Mark knew him better than he knew himself.

Stepping into the living room/kitchen area, the first thing Jack noticed was smoke, lots of smoke and what smelled like burnt—well, burnt everything.

“I feel like I’m doing something wrong here,” Dark called out from beside the stove. Jack coughed and waved at the smoke in front of his eyes. “I’ve seen you ‘goodies’ eat thousands of times, but I never knew it’d be this difficult to cook you fuckers a fucking meal.”

He appeared from the kitchen, red hair falling into his black eyes, and wearing a black t-shirt and tight jeans. He looked good, really good, and Jack distracted himself by hastening to the kitchen to salvage some food for himself. Just because demons (and angels probably) didn’t have to eat, didn’t mean that Jack had to starve.

He saw what was once an egg in a skillet, now more like a shriveled yoke, and a piece of toast, half burnt and half undercooked. How did he even manage that? Jack thought to himself. He looked in the refrigerator. Surprisingly, there was a milk carton that looked relatively recent, and he took a sniff to see if it was still good. It was. He looked into the pantry and found a box of Raisin Bran.

Cereal it is, he decided.

He saw that there was a cup of coffee set out for him on the table already. Jack grabbed a bowl and spoon and sat at the table. He took a deep sniff of his coffee. It smelled amazing.

“Where did you get this?” Jack asked, taking a slow, almost orgasmic, sip of the rich brew. Dark was bouncing on the balls of his feet, clearly pleased with himself.

“I have my ways,” he said happily.

He was a morning person, Dark thought bitterly. Who knew demons could be morning people?

Mark chuckled and walked up behind Dark, smacking him on the ass before kissing his neck briefly. Jack stared, his spoon raised up to his open mouth. Seriously, what the fuck?

Either he said the question out loud or the two celestial beings in front of him knew how to read him too well, because Mark chuckled, and said, “What, a light being can’t have a thing for some dark meat every now and again? I know you do, too, Jack. I’ve seen the images you conjure up when you’re alone in your bedroom. In fact, I’m willing to bet Dark here is exactly your type of dark meat.” His arm was wrapping around Dark’s stomach, revealing a tanned strip of skin above his jeans. Dark didn’t seem to mind being compared to a piece of chicken, because he leaned into the touch and reached around to pat Mark on the head.

Jack forced himself to take another bite of cereal which felt suddenly thick and unpleasant in his throat. He felt a wave of desire run through him that was not entirely his own and he let out a small, breathy moan despite himself. He clapped a hand over his mouth and hoped that the other two hadn’t heard that.

They had. Of course they had. They knew everything about him.

To Jack’s surprise, Mark abruptly let go of Dark and glared at him. “Jesus, fuck, Dark, you need to get your projecting under control,” Mark was saying quietly to Dark, looking accusingly at the demon. “He’s your charge now, and anyway, you know it won’t do you any good to project on him. You can’t touch him. You know that.”

Dark was blushing, actually blushing, and that fact pleased Jack to no extent. “I’m not trying to project on him, you know,” Dark said, stepping away from Mark and scuffing his foot against the edge of the rug. “It’s just—really difficult not to with him and his fucking aura.”

Jack was confused and intrigued and still slightly aroused, whether from Dark’s “projecting” (whatever that meant) or his own frustrations, he didn’t know. He was glad for his loose fitting pajamas as he quietly finished his cereal and coffee. Dark and Mark had retreated into the corner of the living room, clearly trying to hide their hushed conversation from Jack.

At this point in his fucked up life, Jack was okay with not knowing any more about himself and whatever heavenly or demonic force was controlling his life. He missed the simple days when he was blissfully unaware that two very attractive celestial beings had been watching his every move since his birth.

Oh, god, Jack thought about all they’d seen, and he was even more embarrassed about feeling slightly turned on. They’d seen him shower and pee and masturbate. They definitely wouldn’t want him in any kind of sexual way after that. And since it looked like Jack was destined for either heaven or hell in just a few short months, he figured he was probably also “destined” to die a virgin.

He put his dishes in the sink, and walked toward the bathroom. “I’m going to have a shower,” he announced to the arguing creatures.

Mark started to walk toward him before stopping himself. “I guess, you’ll be okay on your own.”

Jack nodded, blushing furiously. “Yeah, I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

He quickly stepped into the bathroom and turned on the shower. It warmed quickly for which Jack was forever grateful. He stripped off his clothes and thought of every other time he’d done this. Who’d been watching him? Dark or Mark? Neither or maybe even both? He imagined Mark touching Dark while Jack touched himself in the shower. 

He thought about the fact that this might be the first time he’s ever taken a shower without someone standing outside, making sure he didn’t slip on the tiles of impale himself with a razor. No one would ever know if he—he reached down his hand to stoke himself as quietly as he could.

He forced back images of Dark pushing him against a wall and fucking him all while Mark watched them out the corner of his eye. Jack stroked himself faster as he thought of them stepping into the shower next to him, beckoning him to join them. Dark would go down on him, his lips covering his hard cock, his black eyes never leaving Jack’s face.

An image entered Jack’s mind of enormous black wings sprouting from Dark’s back and encircling Jack in their warmth and security, and he came hard and hot over his hand.

He was proud of himself for keeping quiet, but he figured he couldn’t really hide anything from them anyway. The thought both terrified and comforted him.

He washed off his hand, and quickly finished showering. Realizing he’d left his clothes in the bedroom, he gathered his pajamas and wrapped a towel tightly around his waist before entering the living area to get to the bedroom. He saw Mark sitting on the couch while Dark paced anxiously back and forth in front of him. The demon’s eyes met Jack’s, and he saw that they were slitted and midnight black. He had a pained expression on his face, his body language tense.

“Fuck you, Jack,” he spat out irritably, taking several steps toward him. “At least I’m trying to control myself.”

“Dark,” Mark hissed warningly. “He doesn’t even know he’s doing it.” He stood from the couch to put a hand on Dark’s chest. Out of the angel’s hand came a beam of light that seemed to rush through Dark’s body and calm him.

Dark stared at Mark for a long moment with an unreadable expression before he slumped onto the couch and waved a hand at Jack, saying, “I’m sorry, Jack. It’s not your fault. Go get dressed, ok?”

Dark’s tone reminded him of the tone his parents used to use when Jack came downstairs in the middle of the night to find them arguing again. “Go get a cookie and go back to bed, Jack,” they’d say. “It’s not your fault. Mommy and Daddy are just talking, ok?” Jack knew it was his fault. He didn’t know what he’d done, but he always knew that somehow it really was his fault. 

Jack stepped into the bedroom to get dressed, wishing he really were a kid again. At least if he died and Mark got his way, he’d get to see his mom again. That thought brought a small comfort to him, and he dressed quickly before going out to see what else the fates had in store for him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Felix shows up as a straight-laced manager of life and death.

CHAPTER 4

Dark and Mark were frustratingly secretive about everything, and Jack mostly sulked on the couch as they talked in hushed tones around the kitchen table. Jack wondered how they started working together in the first place. Weren’t angels and demons battling for different sides in the great scheme of things? They had different bosses, Jack assumed, God and Satan or whatever.

He had read all the reading material in the tiny cabin (one fishing and two gun magazines), and was honestly bored as fuck.

“I’m going on a walk,” he announced, standing up determinately from the couch. “You can come if you want.”

Mark, to Jack’s surprise, said, “Ok, go for it.” Dark shot him a concerned look.

“I don’t think now’s the best time to send him outside. In here, he’s under my guard. I don’t know if I can protect him in the great outdoors, Mark,” the demon said, his eyes darting toward Jack.

“I’m already as good as dead,” Jack said, and it didn’t sound as sad as it should have, “so whatever is out there can’t be that bad. What’s the worst thing they can do to me? Kill me?” Jack laughed humorlessly.

“I wish that were the worst they could do to you,” Dark said quietly.

Jack sighed. He’d really had enough of being kept in this dingy cabin. He reached for the doorknob. “If you want to protect me, guardian angel, you’d better come with me.” He stepped out the door and felt proud of himself for taking a stand against the demon.

“Jack, fucking stop,” Dark shouted at him from the threshold. Jack ignored him and found a small path to walk on. It was cold outside, but not as cold as it had been the past few weeks. Still, he wasn’t really prepared for this weather in his thin sweatshirt, scarf, and jeaned. He heard Dark walking behind him, keeping his distance, but definitely watching Jack.

He glanced over his shoulder at the demon who was wearing nothing but a red t-shirt and tight fitting jeans. That fucker and his fucking inner hell-fire body heat, Jack thought moodily. Dark’s hair was flopping in his eyes, and he pushed it back stubbornly.

More to prevent himself from getting hypothermia than wanting his actual company, Jack invited Dark to walk with him. “Fine,” the demon whined. “I can protect you better this way anyway.” He hurried to catch up to Dark’s long stride.

“Oh, my hero,” Jack said dryly.

They walked in silence for several moments. “I always liked your hair like that,” Dark suddenly said, and Jack looked over to see the demon staring at him. “Like how it looks when you let it dry naturally and don’t try to make it into that fluff thing you do.”

“It’s not fluff. It’s a style,” Jack said.

“Yeah, but this is nice,” Dark said. “You look more like you did before your mom—“

Jack stopped short. Dark turned around to look at him, eyes wide and searching, wondering what he’d done wrong. “I’m sorry, I’m still learning this human stuff, what did I do?”

“Fuck, Dark, you really don’t know?” Jack ran a shaky hand through his hair. “Ok, give me an honest answer for once, ok?”

Dark’s eyes turned blacker. “You know I can’t, Jack—“

“Bullshit,” Jack said loudly, shaking his head. “You just won’t tell me because you think it’d protect me or something. That’s ridiculous. So answer me. Why have you been watching me my whole life if that was supposedly Mark’s heavenly duty? Is he a fucked up angel, or are you just a fucked up demon?”

Dark looked down at his shoe and scuffed a toe in the dirt. It would be sort of cute if Jack weren’t so mad at him at the moment. “A little of both, I guess. It was Mark’s job as an angel to guard you, and he would have done fine on his own. But you—you are my calling; you have been since before your birth. You were chosen for something greater than you and me, and I’m tied to you forever until you die.” Dark stopped, a mixture of regret and relief crossing his features.

Jack leaned against a tree trunk “When you say I’m tied to you, what do you mean? Like a bond or something?”

Dark hesitated again.

“Come on, I deserve to know,” Jack practically pleaded.

“I know you do, Sean,” he said quietly. Jack didn’t know how he felt about the demon using his given name. He shifted from foot to foot, his usual manic self coming back with a vengeance. “Ok, so it’s more than a bond; remember how I mentioned your aura before? How it was unique?” Jack nodded. How could he forget? It was the reason demons supposedly wanted to eat him or something. “Well, that aura is a perfect mirror of mine. Where I am dark, you are light. Where I am evil, you are good. My father was dying, you see, and he needed to ensure that I would take over for him after he passed on to the next realm.”

Jack stared at him as if he were speaking another language. So he was made to be Dark’s antithesis. What did that mean? He was nobody. Why him? 

“Let me explain,” Dark quickly added. “Eighteen years ago, when you were born, my dad made me mark you as destined for hell.”

“But Mark said that I was marked for heaven before yesterday. Otherwise, why would I have a guardian angel,” Jack said, mildly proud of himself for catching on.

“Well, marking humans without ‘management’s’ permission isn’t strictly legal by heavenly codes,” Dark explained. “So they ‘remarked’ you, and assigned Mark to you, but by then it was too late. I was connected to you forever. If you would have died yesterday, I would have died too.”

Jack sighed heavily. Dark was looking at him intently. He leaned one arm against the tree trunk next to Jack’s head. “I can’t be far from you or I grow weaker and weaker until eventually I die.”

He leaned closer to Jack, his warmth invading Jack’s space. It wasn’t unpleasant at all. Jack swallowed, and Dark watched the movement with impossibly black eyes. “But when I’m close to you, I feel powerful, you strengthen me,” Dark said thickly, leaning even closer. His face was close to Jack’s, so close that Jack could feel his breath on his skin. “I feel everything you’re feeling only heightened,” Dark was saying, “and it’s fucking torture because I can never get as close to you as I want to.”

All traces of white in his eyes had disappeared, replaced by black, and they seemed almost to glow in the twilight evening. His hand had moved from the tree trunk to the front of Jack’s shirt, hovering millimeters above the fabric but never touching. Jack felt the warmth flow through him like fire, yet he shivered. Dark smiled slowly to reveal a set of pointed, razor sharp teeth. He dragged the hand down further until it was hovering over the front of Jack’s pants. He leaned close to Jack, and whispered into his ear, “I can feel everything you’re feeling times a thousand.” 

Jack felt frightened and curious and so many things he shouldn’t be feeling about a demon who looked like he was about to eat him.

Suddenly a voice came from a few yards up the trail. “Dark, that’s enough.” It was Mark. Jack knew that without turning to look. Dark paused, but didn’t move himself away from Jack. “Mark,” he said so softly that if Mark were a human, he wouldn’t have been able to hear, “can you touch him for me? I want to feel it. I want to feel what it’s like to touch him. Please, Mark.” He was practically begging.

Jack swallowed thickly, and he was pretty sure he was blushing from head to foot.

“Come on, Dark,” Mark said, “let’s go before you do something you’ll regret later.”

Dark stuck out his lower lip in a petulant pout. Jack wanted to lick his lips, bite them until Dark was begging for more. Instead, he slowly slid out from beneath where Dark had him pinned against the tree. He saw Mark was glowing brightly, sending out a radiant light like he was putting up a shield around himself and those around him.

Where Mark was light, Jack noticed Dark was pulsating a smoky energy that was magnetic and addicting, and Jack found that he had to force himself to move away from the demon. Maybe they really were connected, he thought. It would certainly help to explain the raging hard-on he was currently sporting. Sometimes he hated being a hormonal teenager.

He started heading back toward the cabin, and he heard the two celestial beings follow him at a distance. He looked back briefly to see that Mark had the demon’s hand in his own. Mark’s light was flowing through his arm and down to where their hands were linked. Dark seemed as if he was slowly coming down off whatever demon-trip he had gone on. 

Jack was brooding and still slightly aroused by the time he reached the cabin. It really, really wasn’t fair that Mark could touch Dark and calm him down and transfer energies or whatever, and he was here being a fucking human, stuck somewhere between life and death, heaven and hell. He made himself a bowl of cereal for dinner and took it into his room. Mark knocked on his door once, asking if he was all right. Jack told him to fuck off.

“Dark says he’s sorry,” was all he said in return.

Jack was almost asleep when he felt a shiver pass through his body, settling in his groin. “What the fuck?” he said to himself. He could vaguely hear a soft moan coming from the living room. It was Dark, that much he could tell, and he wasn’t surprised that he was a loud, vocal fuck. He was loud and vocal at all other times of the day too.

He heard Dark’s deep base whisper to Mark as if he were whispering it to Jack, “Yeah, you like that?” Mark gave a breathy whine, “Fuck.” Jack couldn’t exactly tell where Mark was being touched. All he knew was that he was enjoying it. A lot. Jack could sense rather than hear that Mark was grinding his hips against the demon’s as they sat on the couch. He suddenly felt Mark being dragged up off the couch, and Dark was pushing him against a wall.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” Dark was whispering to Mark or maybe to Jack. The lines seemed blurred at this point. Jack ran his hand down his bare chest to his boxers. Tentatively, experimentally, he pushed his hand underneath the waistband, and wrapped a hand around his half-hard cock. He was more than satisfied when he heard Dark let out a loud, primal groan from across the living room.

Jack imagined Mark’s impossibly warm hand ghosting over his cock, urging him to get hard for him. He stroked faster, and he could hear Dark moaning. Jack knew the demon was close. He could hear it, he could feel it as if it were him. “Fucking harder,” he heard himself whisper at the same time as Mark moaned it loudly from the living room. He increased his speed, and barely had to imagine that it was him being fucked, that it was his cock in Dark’s hand.

He came at the same time as Dark, and it spilled over his hand when Dark’s spilled over his. A pleasant grunt came from the living room as Mark came, a noise Jack heard through the walls and not in his own head.

He wiped his hand on the sheet and tucked himself back in his boxers. So this is what Dark had meant when he said he could feel everything Jack was feeling. Why could Jack suddenly feel it too?

He remembered Mark mentioning something about Dark having a hard time controlling his “projections” onto Jack. Maybe it wasn’t really a connection at all. Maybe he was just horny and the demon was projecting his own arousal onto him. But holy fuck, if this kept happening, he wasn’t sure how he would ever face the demon again. He couldn’t hear Dark’s voice without hearing that moan, low and rumbling, echoing in his subconscious, begging to be touch him. 

Jack lay awake for hours, turning over the events of the day in his mind. What did Dark mean when he said that Jack was connected to him, his “reverse mirror” or whatever? And why would he not touch Jack? If he really was meant to keep Dark alive forever through his “aura” or whatever, wouldn’t it help to transfer some of that aura to him?

Dark didn’t even know what to think anymore. He really wanted to go home to his dad, to his job, even to school, and he curled up into a ball on the bed in the same way he used to when he’d had a nightmare. His mom would always come in and lay down next to him, stroking his hair and singing to him until he fell asleep. The door quietly opened, and as if on cue, a body lay down in the bed next to him. A strong arm wrapped around his waist. It was Mark, Jack could tell by the way he smelled and the way he felt; he wasn’t warm like Dark would be.

“Dark is trying, he really is,” Mark was saying into Jack’s neck. “This is new to him, too. He’s never been a guardian for a human before, and he’s still learning how the whole projecting thing works. Plus it makes it even harder because of that fucking aura of yours.”

“I still don’t get that,” Jack said, unconsciously nuzzling closer into Mark.

Mark responded by wrapping his arm even tighter around Jack, and he could swear he felt some of Mark’s light flowing into him, calming him, soothing him to relax. “If you ever saw Dark’s aura, you’d understand, and you’d feel the same,” he said. “His aura like yours, only dark, and it attracts angels and demons to him, just like yours does.”

Jack listened to Mark breathing for several long moments. “Am I going to Hell?” he asked in a small, child-like voice.

“I don’t know,” Mark said honestly. “But I promise I’ll do everything I can to keep that from happening, ok?”

Jack nodded, and Mark kissed his neck softly. Jack could swear he heard music then, like when his mom would sing to him as a child. He fell asleep quickly, and once again dreamed of fallen demons, and black wings, and battles in fire and ice. 

The next morning, Jack woke late. The sun was streaming through the window, but Mark was nowhere to be seen. He pulled on a set of clothes, the only other ones he’d brought with him, and padded into the living room barefooted. Dark was sitting on the counter, sniffing a can of coffee and wrinkling his nose. His eyes met Jack’s and they looked tired and worn. Jack looked away, his face turning faintly red. He scanned the room to see Mark sitting on the sofa. In the armchair was a man Jack had never seen before. He was dressed all in a black suit, his hair neatly parted to the side. A cane rested by one knee, and Jack resisted the urge to laugh at his fashion choice, but then again, he was wearing dirty sweats and a wrinkled hoodie so he wasn’t really one to talk at this point.

The man turned to scan Jack. His eyes were blue. Really, really blue like looking into the arctic ocean, inhuman, and entrancing.

“So this is him,” he was saying, curtly, professionally, like a used car salesman. “Mr. Sean McLoughlin, I presume? I’m sorry about this whole kerfuffle. I’m Felix, manager of EHS, that’s Eastside Heavenly Souls.” He extended his hand to Jack.

Jack gaped at the ‘manager’. “Kerfuffle?” he repeated incredulously. “You put me right in the middle of a fucking battle between heaven and hell. I’d hardly call that a kerfuffle.”

Felix waggled a finger at him. “Nuh uh, that was not our fault. We at EHS pride ourselves on making sure everyone dies when they’re supposed to and end up where they’re supposed to.” He crossed himself and lifted his index finger to the ceiling. “Your situation was entirely the demon world’s fault, specifically, that demon there,” he pointed at Dark, “and we are looking into it, let me assure you. At EHS, we want you to be happy with your eternal destination.”

Jack stared at him for a long moment before saying, “What the actual fuck?”

“Tut, tut,” he said. “That kind of language isn’t going to help speed along your new destination papers any faster. What we need to figure out is how to get you back under the jurisdiction of your appointed guardian angel, Mark here, so that he can kill you properly.” Felix smiled cheerfully.

Jack turned to look at Mark who was smiling back at Felix with a cheesy grin. Great, thought Jack, his guardian angel was trying to kiss up to the person who was giving the orders to remove him from the planet. He was totally fucked.

“Can’t I just stay on earth and live out my days in peace and die of old age or something before going, you know,” Jack pointed up at the ceiling.

Felix turned his cold blue eyes on him. “Oh, no no no, Mr. McLoughlin. You must die. And soon. Don’t worry, Mark will make it very painless. Trust me, it might seem scary at the moment, but death passes quicker than the blink of an eye, and then you’ll feel like you’re home forever. Wouldn’t you like that?”

Jack considered honestly for a moment. What Felix was describing really did sound—not terrible. And hey, his mom was probably up there waiting for him. He chanced a look at Dark, who had a pained, almost desperate expression on his face. If he died and went to heaven, Dark would die, that he knew. He heard a pleading voice in his head saying a quiet, “Please.”

Jack turned back to Felix. “And if I refuse to go along with you?”

Felix looked shocked, and he puffed up his chest like a bird fluffing up its feathers. “Well, one of two things will happen. Either you’ll die and go to hell or in his infinite mercy, God will send a hoard of angels to rip your soul from this earth to take you to heaven against your will.” He leaned back into the armchair. “I can assure you, neither option is desirable or pleasant for anybody.”

Jack sat down heavy on the sofa. He looked at Mark who was no longer smiling. He attempted to spread some light to Jack, but he waved the angel away. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Dark. He knew what he’d see. A darker mirror image of his own feelings. Everything about him was a mirror image of the demon.

He thought about living for an eternity in a paradise with his mom. She would welcome him with open arms, and it really would feel like home.

“Is my dad,” Jack began, looking at Felix, “is my dad marked for heaven?”

Felix sighed. “He is a good man, deep down. Yes, he is marked for heaven.”

“Fuck,” Jack whispered, resting his head in his palms. “I can’t make this choice.”

“You have to,” Felix said quietly and firmly.

Mark reached to take one of Jack’s hands in his own. “Jack, think of your family. Do you want to leave them alone forever?”

Jack shook his head, “Of course not, it’s just. He looked at Mark in his soft brown eyes which felt comforting and familiar. ”You’ll be there too?” he asked. Mark smiled, and Jack swore he felt lighter suddenly, happier. There really was only one decision to make, he knew that now, looking at Mark. Heaven would be so nice. No more pain and suffering.

“Ok,” he told Felix with an unnatural calm, “I’ll go with Mark to heaven. It’s really the only right thing to do, isn’t it?” 

Felix leaned back in the chair contentedly spreading his hands across his chest. “Glad you saw it our way, Mr. McLoughlin. Trust me, you won’t regret your decision.” He gave a nod toward Mark that Jack couldn’t interpret in the cloudy mist he was currently feeling in his belly. Everything would be fine as long as he said yes to this offer.

He was only faintly aware of Dark sliding down from the counter, and hissing to Mark, “Now who’s fucking projecting on him, huh?” Jack barely registered the cabin door opening and Dark leaving in an angry flurry of demon energy.

Jack had done the right thing. He knew he had. But the moment Mark let go of his hand, he felt suddenly so empty and hollow and suddenly he knew nothing would ever be right again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooh Dark is pissed. Next chapter will be up super soon!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack dies...sort of. 
> 
> A/N: This chapter contains mention of attempted rape.

CHAPTER 5

Felix had left right after Jack had agreed to let Mark take him to heaven. God, when had his life become so ridiculous. He wasn’t even sure he’d believed in a heaven or hell before this week. Now he was talking about going there like he was planning a fucking vacation or something.

As soon as the managerial angel left, Mark stood from where he had been seated by Jack on the couch, and walked to the kitchen.

“You must be hungry,” Mark said, pulling a box of macaroni and cheese from the cupboard. Of course Mark would know that Mac n' Cheese was always Jack’s favorite when he was feeling low.

“Where’s Dark?” Jack asked, looking around. Now that he was thinking clearer, he realized the demon had left while he had been talking to Felix.

“Don’t worry, Jack, he’s fine. Just stepped out for a bit.” Mark started to boil the water.

Jack watched him for a long moment. “I didn’t think angels were supposed to lie,” he said softly. Mark stilled before shrugging his shoulders.

“As long as we get our jobs done, they don’t really care what we get up to down here. So lying is not a big deal.”

“How about fucking demons?” the words were out of Jack’s mouth before he could stop them, and he instantly regretted them.

Mark laughed good naturedly. “We're just doing each other a favor," he said. "I can’t fill the void that was left in Dark the day he marked you. You’re half of him, only you can complete him. But yeah, I guess provide a little distraction for him while he's unable to touch you.” Jack snorted knowingly. Mark looked at Jack, suddenly serious, and said, “Exactly, how much have his projections been affecting you?”

Jack shrugged. “Not too much. I feel what he’s feeling when his emotions are heightened. Like when he’s mad or happy or when he’s, you know, really happy.” Jack gave Mark a pointed look. “But I think he senses more of what I’m feeling than I do of him.”

Mark nodded, stirring the macaroni in the boiling water. “That makes sense. When I had charge over you, I felt you really keenly. More than I felt most of my other charges in the past years. There’s just something really unique about you.” He didn’t say it like a compliment, and Jack didn’t take it that way. They were both silent for several moments before Mark finished making the food and set the whole pan on the table. “Lunch?” Mark said.

Jack was hungry, so he sat at the table and began eating. It tasted good, better than whatever Dark would have cooked. Mark sat at the other end of the table, watching him. He’d spent the last 18 years watching him, Jack remembered. It made him feel comforted and afraid all at once.

“So why can you touch my skin but Dark can’t?” Jack asked, trying for a conversational tone.

Mark folded his hands behind his head. “Basically what it is, is demons and angels both exist off of human auras, like human energies.”

“Exist off of?” Jack asked.

“Well, to use a crude term, we feed off them.” Jack wrinkled his nose. Mark laughed and continued, “When demons touch humans, they suck the light out of them, take some of their goodness away from them and replace it with doubt and darkness. When an angel touches a human, we suck some of the darker, more negative aura out of them and leave them with a nice, peaceful feeling.”

Well, that would explain why whenever Mark touched him, he felt calmer and more relaxed. “So Dark doesn’t want to feed off me? That’s why he can’t touch me?”

Mark stared a moment before shaking his head. “It’s not as simple as that. You were made to complete him, to be the yin to his yang, to be the force that will keep him alive forever.” It should have sounded romantic, but the way Mark said it scared Jack and he swallowed heavily. “But as soon as he touches you,” Mark continued, “he’ll take back some of the mark that he left on you when you were a baby. The more he touches you, the more he'll take until it's all used up, and he’ll eventually become immortal. That's why he marked you in the first place, even if it was his father's idea.”

“And I’ll die.” It was a statement rather than a question.

“Worse. You’ll exist forever without a soul,” Mark said. “Which means you’ll be somewhere between heaven and hell forever. No one knows what happens there because you can’t exactly go for a weekend trip and then come back, you know.”

Jack thought about Dark touching him, claiming his soul for his own little by little until he was nothing more than a shell. It scared him, and he shivered in his seat. Mark reached a hand across the table as if to try to calm him, but Jack jerked his hand away.

“No, I’m going to go find him,” Jack said, standing from the table. “If I just sentenced him to eternal damnation, then I’d like to at least tell him why.”

“He knows why,” Mark said as Jack grabbed his jacket off the edge of the couch. “You want to be with your family forever.”

Jack’s hand paused on the doorknob. He turned toward Mark, “Tell me something. If you hadn’t been touching me when Felix was here, hadn’t been projecting on me, would I have made the same decision? To go with you to heaven?” He didn’t know why he was asking Mark, after all, Jack was in charge of his own life, his own decisions. Or he had been at least.

“I don’t know, Sean,” he said sincerely, “I’m not your guardian anymore, and I can’t read your intentions like I used to. However, I think I do know you well enough to say that, yeah, I think you would have probably made the same decision. Dark is a demon. In human terms, he’s the bad guy. You don’t deserve to have to live with that kind of evil forever. He could take your soul from you at any moment.”

But he hadn't. Why?

Jack nodded, not sure if he could really picture Dark being the villain type, but then again the demon had sucked the goodness out of that old woman and replaced it with bitterness and doubt. Yeah, maybe he was a bad guy after all. Still, Jack knew he needed to talk to him, so he turned the doorknob and stepped outside.

It wasn’t cold, at least not as cold as it had been, but there was a kind of electricity in the air that set him on edge immediately. Now that he was outside, he didn’t know where to go. Where the fuck does a demon go when he’s pissed off with his human charge? Jack started walking toward the trail that would take him out of the woods and into civilization again. What if he just went back home? Saw his dad, returned to his job, apologizing profusely to his boss until the old softy hired him again. What would happen if he pretended this whole debacle never happened?

They would find him. He knew they would. He couldn’t ever escape.

Still, he found his legs walking toward the city, hoping if he walked far enough and fast enough he could escape his impending fate. When he saw the highway, he realized that he was farther from home than he’d originally thought. He couldn’t walk it, so he stuck out his thumb and hoped this worked for him like it did in the movies—without the serial killer part, of course.

He walked along the road as cars passed him by, honking but not stopping, those fuckers. Finally, a pickup truck pulled up behind him. Jack turned to look over his shoulder, a relatively normal-looking, middle aged man was behind the wheel. He poked his head out the window. “Need a ride, son?” he asked. He sounded friendly enough. Jack nodded his head and opened the passenger’s side door, climbing into the truck cab.

“Thanks so much,” Jack said, buckling his seatbelt. He looked toward the driver, and instead came face to face with something that definitely wasn’t completely human. Its eyes were blood red, and it smiled at him through pointed teeth. Its hair was black and slightly greasy

The driver was talking amiably beside the demon. “Not a problem, it’ll be nice to have some company on the road for a change. Where you headed?”

The demon shook his head slowly back and forth, and Jack swallowed. “Uh, downtown. Yeah, downtown. I just need to catch the bus.”

“That’s right on my way,” the driver said, in a friendly manner, before pulling back into traffic on the highway.

The demon was still staring at Jack, a hungry look in his dark red eyes. “So, what they say is true, you can see us, huh?” he asked Jack, his voice sounding strange and distorted like he was speaking underwater.

“What do you want?” Jack asked.

“What’s that, son?” the driver said, and of course, Jack thought, he couldn’t see demons or angels or any other fucked up thing Jack had seen over the past few days.

“Nothing, sorry, just talking to myself,” Jack said, trying to sound conversational. The demon chuckled, then leaned really close to Jack, nearly touching his neck. His tongue darted out of his mouth as if trying to taste Jack, but he jumped back liked he’d been burned.

“Fuck,” he shouted, grabbing at his head, “Dark marked you already, that fucker.” He pouted in the seat next to him. “It’s not fucking fair that someone with an aura like yours gets to belong to some spoiled little fuck of a demon like Dark.”

The driver was asking him a question. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” Jack asked.

“I was just wondering what a kid like you is doing out of school this time of day.” He was looking at Jack, concerned.

“Oh, um,” Jack was never good at lying, “I’m actually not in school. I graduated last year.”

“Huh,” the driver said skeptically. They rode in silence for several minutes.

The demon got bored, and leaned toward the driver, chuckling. “Oh my, what do we have here?” he said, brushing his pointed-clawed hand up the driver’s leg. “I think I can work with this.”

Jack gave him a look that clearly said, “What the fuck are you doing to him?”

“You see,” the demon said, hand still hovering over the driver’s leg, “out little driver here might claim to be a happily married man, but I’m sensing a little doubt he has when he looks at pretty little boys like yourself. Oh, yes, I can definitely work with this. And won’t Dark be pissed when he knows someone else has touched his little charge before him.”

The demon whispered something into the driver’s ear that Jack couldn’t quite hear. He saw the driver swallow deeply before shifting in his seat as if suddenly nervous. He cleared his throat loudly, trying to get his thoughts back under control.

“So, do you have any kids?” Jack said quickly and loudly to break the tension. The driver glanced over. His eyes darted to Jack’s lips. Jack felt suddenly scared and alone and uncomfortable.

“Oh, um, yeah, I have a daughter who’s ten and a son who’s about to turn six.” A war was clearly being waged in the driver’s head, and Jack could almost see the demon next to him pouring some of his dark energy into the man to break him down completely, to make him question everything he’d ever known to be right and good in the world.

“Wow, that’s grand,” Jack said. The man’s hands were getting sweaty and he rubbed them on the leg of his pants. He licked his lips. “You know," Jack added quickly, "you can just drop me off at the edge of town, that’s fine. It’s really close to my apartment anyway,” Jack said. "I'll take the bus."

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the driver said, and his hand rested on top of Jack’s thigh for a brief moment before he quickly snatched it away. He cleared his throat. “I’ll take you home, don’t worry.”

The demon next to him laughed and Jack didn’t think he’d ever hated anything more. This man was a good man, Jack could tell. Who didn’t have a secret vice or two in their closet? If the demon hadn’t come along, the driver probably would never even have thought about acting on his perversion of choice.

“Tell me more about your kids,” Jack said. The man put a hand to his head as if to try to clear it.

He started talking about his kids, and Jack tried hard to listen while the demon whispered something in the driver’s year. The man paused, his eyes darting toward Jack for a brief moment before looking away, hands tightening on the wheel as he nearly swerved off the road. The demon smirked at Jack. “I just put the image of you stretched out on his bed, naked and begging for daddy to fuck him. I think he liked it.”

Jack swallowed nervously, and they rode the rest of the way in silence. The driver exited off the highway. The wrong exit, Jack noticed. “I just need to pick something up at my house really quick, ok?” he was saying.

Jack nodded, feeling scared. They pulled up to a fairly standard-looking home complete with a motherfucking white picket fence. He parked the truck in the driveway and turned to Jack.

“Come in if you want, it’s too cold to wait out in here.”

Jack looked at the demon who shrugged his shoulders. “Do what you want,” the demon said. “He and his family are marked for heaven so I can’t go into his home without his permission.”

Jack nodded. He’d certainly rather be with that man than this demon. “Ok, yeah, sounds good,” he told the driver.

Inside, his house was perfectly clean and ordinary. Jack asked to use restroom, and the man led him to the bathroom, standing in the doorway as Jack slid past him. He shut the door behind him, and Jack leaned against the counter, staring at his reflection. He looked tired, his face pale, his hair curling at the ends like it did when he was a kid and didn’t know how to style it. Dark had said he liked his hair like this.

Upon exiting the bathroom, he saw the man waiting for him outside the door. “Oh, uh, hi,” Jack said. “Did you get your thing?”

The man nodded, looking at Jack darkly. Jack could see a slight bulge in his pants and he fought off a wave of revulsion. “This isn’t you,” he told the driver. “You’re under the influence of some kind of evil--thing, ok? If you just let me leave, you’ll forget about me and just go back to your family, ok?” He was talking fast, edging toward the front door. The man followed him step for step, grabbing for Jack’s hand when he tried to bolt for the exit.

Jack shouted and tried to pull away, but he was strong, really strong. The man dragged him to the ground, and pinned him down, hips pressing down on Jack’s heavily. He tried to kick up at him, but to no avail. The man pinned Jack’s hands over his head. “I know you want this. You’d like this, wouldn’t you, pretty boy?”

Jack screamed, and the man slapped him across the face so hard that Jack’s ears were ringing. “None of that now,” he said. He started to unbutton his pants, and against his will, Jack felt tears start to stream down his face. Where were his fucking guardian angels now?

As if on cue, he heard something slam against the front door. “Sean, fucking let me in,” it was Dark’s voice shouting, raspy and concerned. “I can’t go in unless someone lets me, fucking fuck.” He was pounding against the door so hard, even the driver heard it, and his face blanched. Thinking it was probably the cops or something, he rolled off Jack, quickly buttoning his pants. Jack sprinted toward the front door, and opened it wide.

Dark didn’t look like anything he’d ever seen before. His eyes had turned black, and he was pulsating with a dark energy that Jack was positive could be visible to anyone. What left Jack speechless was the set of black wings that began to unfurl on Dark’s back. At least nine feet from tip to tip, they stretched out behind him like obsidian curtains. The man was looking at Dark, his eyes bugged out and he stumbled to the ground trying to crawl away as Dark advanced on him.

Jack grabbed for Dark’s shirt, and the demon turned his dark eyes on him. It took a considerable amount of strength for Jack to actually formulate words in his head. “It’s not his fault,” he managed to get out. “There was another demon who corrupted him. He’s a good person, Dark. Let's just go, ok?”

Dark didn’t seem to care. He pointed to Jack and hissed out an other-earthly, “Mine,” before closing the gap between himself and the man who was shaking in terror on the ground.

His voice was dark and rumbling, evil and thick, as he told the driver, “If I could physically hurt you, I would. I would make you bleed in front of your family. I would make them watch as I cut you open from top to bottom.” He lowered himself to the ground, and whispered something in the man’s ear that Jack could barely make out. It sounded something like, “And then, right before you died, I’d do the same to them, and make you watch, you sick fuck.” Jack shuddered. Dark leaned down and touched the man’s temples with his hands. Pitch black energy flowed from his fingertips into the driver who convulsed violently before becoming board-stiff and staring straight up at the ceiling.

When Dark was done, he stepped back, his wings clipping the side table and knocking off a picture of the man and his family smiling on a beach somewhere. Jack looked down at the man on the ground. He was still breathing, still alive—technically. His mouth had gone slack and it opened and shut like a fish. His eyes were dead, soulless.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Jack said, turning toward the demon. “He just made a mistake, it was—”

Jack stopped when he saw the look on Dark’s face, menacing and possessive. “Mine,” he hissed once again in a demonic whisper, and he backed Jack up until he hit the wall. Jack swallowed hard. “Dark, I don’t—” The demon ignored him and his wings wrapped around Jack, tucking behind his back, first one and then the other, trapping them both in a dark curtain.

They were soft, and Jack couldn’t help but run his hands across their feathery surface. Dark closed his eyes and leaned his head next to Jack’s against the wall. “I won’t let them fucking take you from me,” Dark said, his voice impossibly low and rumbling, and Jack noticed he was shaking slightly. “They can’t have you. You’re mine, you always have been.”  
Jack continued to stroke his wings, and Dark let out a sound close to a purr. “I have to go, Dark. They marked me for heaven. I have no choice.”

Dark pulled his head back and looked into Jack’s eyes. The demon's eyes were still black, now slitted like a cat’s. He put his hand against Jack’s chest, touching him through the fabric of his jacket. The warmth and energy from the demon poured through him like liquid fire, and Jack’s head rolled back as he fought the urge to whimper.

“I could take your soul right now, you know?” Dark said, inching his hand up Jack’s chest, closer and closer to the bare skin of his neck. “Then you’d always be mine, and I’d always have you with me.” Jack was breathing heavily, leaning into the demon’s touch. Dark’s hand stopped mere millimeters from Jack’s bare neck. Jack stopped breathing. “Except, it wouldn’t be you,” Dark dropped his hand to his side, his fist clenching helplessly. Jack sighed at the loss of contact. “Not really. I’d have just the shell of you, and I can’t live without all of you belonging to me for all time.”

Jack ran a tentative hand across the demon’s wings and up to his shoulder, hovering over the bare skin of his collarbone. Dark was watching his movements intensely. “I can’t,” said Jack suddenly, dropping his hand to his side. “I have to go with Mark. I can’t live like this forever, Dark. Never feeling the love of another, never knowing if you’re going to turn on me one day, never knowing if you’re going to suck out my soul during the middle of the night or something.” He swallowed and looked down at his feet, adding quietly,   
“Never being able to touch you without losing myself.”

Dark backed away from him. He removed his wings out from behind Jack. He itched to touch them again, to be wrapped in their warmth forever. Dark folded them behind his back and closed his eyes, concentrating until they seemed to disappear entirely from sight, like some kind of spell or glamour hiding them from Jack’s eyes.

“We should get you back to the cabin,” Dark said coldly. “We’ll take his truck.” Dark motioned toward the driver still staring straight ahead, mouth hanging open, eyes dead of life. Jack felt sick to his stomach. 

The drive back to the woods was silent. Jack felt empty and alone. As dusk slipped into darkness, they parked the truck at the edge of the woods, and Dark led them along the trail until they reached the cabin. Mark was sitting on the steps of the front porch.

“What the fuck, Dark?” he said as soon as they were in view, shoving Dark’s chest so hard the demon staggered backward. “You fucking blocked him from my view. I didn’t know where he was or if he was dead or if some demon had got to him or if you had fucking got to him.”

“It’s taken care of,” was all Dark said.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Mark asked. Their polar-opposite energies of light and dark made the air pulsate with an electric charge. Jack backed away.

“It means that he’s safe, and he’s yours to do with what you want, ok?” Dark’s eyes showed no anger, only sadness and desperation. “Kill him and take him to heaven. As soon as possible. It’ll be better that way.”

Mark was silent for a moment before he reached to touch his hand. “Dark, I—”

“Please.” His face was all earnestness and worry. “He’s made his choice, and I’ve made mine. Do this for me.”

Mark considered for a moment before nodding slowly. “Ok,” he said, placing his hand on Dark’s shoulder. “But you know that as soon as Jack crosses the threshold into heaven, your claim on him disappears. Your connection will be lost, and you won’t be able to find him. You know that.”

Dark blinked. “I know,” he said.

Jack stepped forward to demand whether he had some say in this, but Dark cut him off. “Goodbye, Sean,” and started toward the edge of the woods.

“Dark, wait,” Jack shouted, started to jog after him. Dark shook his wings into visibility but didn’t turn around to face him, as if he couldn’t bear to look at Jack without changing his mind. His wings spread out before him, breathtakingly beautiful in their power and glory. The demon launched himself into the air, a mesmerizing sight to see, as black wings blended with black night, disappearing into the dark depths of dark sky. 

Jack reached a hand up to feel a tear on his cheek. He hadn’t even realized he was crying. Mark touched his hand, and this time, Jack accepted the angel’s projections of happiness and peace. Everything would be fine if Mark said it would. Dark really was the bad guy. Jack would see his mom again, and everything would be fine.

That night, Mark stepped into Jack’s room and lay down beside him on the bed. He wrapped a strong arm around Jack’s waist and asked him if he was ready.

Jack nodded.

Jack didn’t know what to expect from death. Would his life flash before his eyes? Would he see a light at the end of the tunnel? Would a choir of angels greet him singing the Halleluiah chorus?

In the end, dying was sort of a letdown. He felt a brief moment of pain as Mark drew a knife down Jack’s wrist, crossing it to let the blood flow out quickly. Then he felt the world start to go hazy, and he began to dream of wings being burnt off of Dark’s back, of him screaming, and falling to earth with nothing to break his fall, nothing to stop him.

The last thing he saw was a set of pure golden wings unfurl behind Mark’s back like a gilded curtain, shining and beautiful. Jack smiled weakly, and stepped out of his body to hug himself into Mark’s arms, and then they were falling—no, not falling—flying up higher and higher until Jack couldn’t see anything, couldn’t feel any more pain.

He slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not the end! Next chapter: Jack falls further than expected.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack doesn't end up in heaven and Mark doesn't like it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Blood and mentions of suicide

CHAPTER 6

Jack awoke slowly, disoriented, like he’d slept for dozens of hours longer than he should have. For a moment upon opening his eyes he saw nothing but white, and thought for a moment that maybe heaven really was just a cloud in the sky like they showed in picture books. But on turning his head to one side, he determined he was in a bedroom, a huge, white room, so big that he couldn’t see the end. He was lying in a bed big enough for six with white covers, white headboard, and white posts. Next to his bed was a white nightstand with a single blood red apple on top of it.

Everything was perfectly clean and neat, and if Jack weren’t so disoriented, that fact would have made the obsessively neat part of him very pleased. He turned his head to the other side to see a long couch, again blood red in color.

Sitting casually on the couch was Felix, dressed in his standard, tight-fitting black suit and polished shoes. He looked as he had on earth, except his silver wings, perfectly groomed and luminescent, were visible, stretched out beautifully behind his back. He was running his hands through the feathers in a bored fashion when he saw Jack. His face brightened, and he immediately affected a plastic smile.

“Oh, so good to see you awake, Mr. McLoughlin,” he said. “Join me, would you?” He gestured to the couch, and drew his wings closed to fold behind his back in order to give Jack room to sit next to him.

Jack slowly swung his legs from under the covers and tentatively stepped onto the soft white carpet beneath. Every sense felt heightened in the same way he’d felt before during the two or three times he’d taken drugs in his life. It was wonderful and intoxicating. He cleared his throat to say something but found it was dry, really dry, like he hadn’t had a sip to drink in days.

As if on cue, a strange creature entered the room, pale and impossibly thin, thinner than any human, nothing more than bones and skin. It wore only a pair of loose fitting white pants, and Jack saw his ribs jutting from his chest. His cheeks were hollow and his eyes were sunken into his face, glassy and lifeless. 

The creature gave him a goblet of some dark liquid, and Jack drank of it greedily as it slid down his throat, tasting like honey. Some spilled onto his chest and everywhere the liquid touched felt warm and loved. He drank more and more until there was none left.

The creature took the cup from him and turned toward the door. Jack swallowed as he saw two scarred nubs on his shoulder blades, the place where wings once had been. The creature left the room quickly. Jack knew he should have felt repulsed by the scarred figure, but he couldn’t feel anything but a sweet contentment and a hazy wonder at the world around him.

He walked dreamily toward Felix who was watching him intently.

“Feel better?” he asked.

Jack nodded because he did. He really did. “Is this heaven?” Jack asked.

“Come and sit down Jack.” Jack did. “Are you still thirsty?” Jack was, but something inside him told him he shouldn’t drink more of the liquid, so he shook his head. “Are you sure?” Felix was asking.

“Yes, I’m fine, thank you,” Jack said, sinking down into the impossibly soft couch. He wanted to curl up on it and sleep forever. “Is this heaven?” Jack asked again.

“Do you think this is heaven, Jack?” Felix asked, annoyingly condescending.

“That’s not what I asked,” Jack said, but he was having trouble formulating a clear thought. He shook his head to try to regain lucidity.

“This is wherever you want it to be, Mr. McLoughlin,” Felix said, tapping a hand on his knee as though he had other places to be.

“Where’s Dark?” Jack asked. Why hadn’t he thought of the demon sooner? He’d thought about little else his last week on earth. He figured it was a futile question anyway. If this were heaven, the demon would be far from here. Still, he wanted to know. Wanted to know how long it would take for the demon to die without Jack’s aura giving him energy, feeding him.

“I’m sorry, who?” Felix asked, his plastic smile faltering only slightly.

“You know? Dark? The demon who put the mark on me and stopped me from dying last week? The one who caused all this 'kerfuffle'?”

“Is he another voice you’ve been hearing, Mr. McLoughlin?” Felix said, concerned.

Jack sat back against the couch and ran a shaky hand through his hair, which he noticed was considerably longer than last time he’d seen it. “No. No, fuck you,” he told Felix, trying for ferocity in his tone, but he felt just so confused. Where was he?

“You seem distressed. Let me get you some help.” Felix stepped outside the door to talk to someone on the other side.

Jack got up to go follow him. In stepped Mark, and Jack sighed in relief. “Mark, what the fuck is going on?” he said.

Mark was wingless and wearing plain green scrubs. “Calm down, Mr. McLoughlin,” he was saying. “You’ve had quite an ordeal. Let’s get you back in bed, okay?” He moved to grab Jack by the arm, but he wrenched it away.

“Mark, what are you doing? What did they do to you?” he asked. Mark looked concerned.

“I think you need to get some rest, Jack,” he said, this time reaching to grab Jack around his middle. He snaked away and bolted for the door. Felix and Mark rushed after him, but he was able to slip past them and run into the hallway outside his room.

It was long, stretching the length of two football fields or more. Thousands of doors lined each side, and the noise was deafening. Screaming and maniacal laughter and weeping emanated from each doorway. Jack began running down the hall, but was stopped by an enormous, muscled man.

“Whoops, where you trying to get off to?” he asked, grabbing Jack around his waist and hoisting him back to his room. Jack kicked and screamed, but the bigger man seemed impervious.

“Where the fuck am I?” Jack screamed to Felix, to Mark, to anyone who’d answer him, but no one did.

Mark gave Felix a pointed look. “I think you should tell him,” he said. Felix paused a moment to consider, then sighed.

“Maybe you’re right, Mark, but not yet.”

The big man dragged Jack into his room, and Felix followed close behind. Jack staggered to stay standing; he felt so dizzy and his head felt thick with hundreds of thoughts that weren’t quite the right ones. He was so thirsty, and the big man forced him to drink from a cup that held more of the sweet liquid. Suddenly, it didn’t taste good it at all, and it burned his throat as he tried not to swallow it.

“Come on, Jack, drink it; you’ll feel better,” Felix was saying, and he grabbed Jack by the throat violently to force him to swallow. Jack choked and tried to push him away, but the liquid slid down his throat nonetheless. 

Once he’d swallowed the last drop, he dropped to the bed. He felt better, a lot better. Why had he not wanted to drink it? It tasted so good, and everything was fine. He had no need to worry about—who was he worried about?

“At-a-boy, Jack,” Mark said gently, giving Felix a harsh look, and helped Jack swing his legs onto the bed and under the covers.

“Is this heaven?” Jack asked again.

Mark swung a glance at Felix who stepped forward as Jack lay his head down on his pillow. It was so soft. Felix’s wings were shining and silver and more beautiful than anything Jack had ever seen. He reached forward to touch them, but Felix withdrew. 

“This is a mental hospital, Mr. McLoughlin,” he said. “You tried to kill yourself several days ago.”

Jack noticed for the first time that his wrists were bandaged tightly. How had he not noticed that? Why had he tried to kill himself in the first place? Life was so wonderful. Everything was just so wonderful.

“Why would I do that?” he voiced the question aloud.

“You’re very sick, Jack,” Felix was saying. “You didn’t know what you were doing.”

Jack nodded. That made perfect sense. Everything made perfect sense.

Again, he slept.

When he awoke, his room looked as it had before, stark white. The couch was gone, replaced by a single chair that looked rather uncomfortable. The apple was still on the nightstand. He picked it up tentatively, and went to take a bite. It burned his hand like acid and he dropped it, watching as it sizzled and melted into the floor, leaving an ugly black mark in an otherwise perfectly white room.

He looked toward the door. It was gone. He scanned the room rapidly for another exit or entrance but found none. His senses all felt heightened, and he had trouble breathing as he realized there was no escape. He was completely trapped, completely alone.

He looked down to see his fingernails scratching into his arm, a nervous, compulsive gesture that plagued him when he felt like he couldn’t control his life. But he felt no pain even as he saw blood begin to trickle down his arm. It felt like he were watching someone else bleeding.

A single drop of blood dripped onto the pure white ground, leaving an ugly red stain next to the burn mark the apple had made. As he watched it, the blood seemed to spread across the floor, seeping through the carpet, and inching its way toward Jack. He shuffled back onto the bed to avoid it touching his feet, but it crawled up the bedpost and onto the bed behind him. He couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t scream. He curled into a ball and shut his eyes, the way his mom had told him to when he had nightmares as a child.

In his mind, he saw her combing a hand through his hair, singing softly and coaxing him into sleep. “If you’d like to swing on a star, carry moonbeams home in a jar, and be better off than you are...” Jack could almost hear her as though she were there; feel her as if she were actually touching him.

Instead, when he opened his eyes, he saw that the room looked normal again. Pure white except for the black and red stains on the floor. Those fucking spots got under his skin, and he longed for something to clean the floor with, the way he’d always clean the carpet after his dad had puked on it, erasing the memory of what had happened the night before.

No one came in to give him food. Only more of that drink. He never ate, yet he didn’t feel hungry. Occasionally he tasted the sweetness of the drink on his tongue, and wanted more, but he pushed the desire for it away. Whatever was going on here, he knew that the drink clouded his thoughts. If he ever hoped to escape, he would need a clear mind.

He thought for a moment. What if he were in a mental hospital? What if he’d always been crazy? What if it had just been in his head? There were no angels and demons, no Dark and Felix and Mark. No, that wasn’t possible. He wasn’t crazy.

But then again, didn’t all crazy people think that way?

He had no way of keeping track of day or night. How long had he been here? His hair was getting always longer, and he’d even started to grow a little scruff along his cheeks. Yet he never felt hungry, never thirsty except for a desire for a taste of that sweet drink.

The stains remained, burning into his soul like they’d burned into the floor. If he weren’t already crazy, he knew he’d go mad in here, sooner rather than later. He wondered if they’d forgotten about him. However, if this really were a mental hospital, that seemed unlikely. And why hadn’t his dad visited him then, or his friends, or anyone?

After a hundred years or maybe a day, he finally woke up to see a face lying next to him. It was a face both completely familiar and totally foreign to him, one that was as comforting as it was terrifying.

“Dark?” Jack’s voice was hoarse. How long had it been since he’d spoken aloud, he wondered.

The demon opened his eyes, looking at Jack with both desperation and relief. “Are you real?” he asked, low and weak. Jack shrugged his shoulders. He wasn’t sure anymore. “I didn’t think this would ever actually work,” Dark said, and it seemed he was holding his breath for fear Jack would disappear with the slightest exhale.

Jack didn’t know what to say. He reached to touch Dark’s face, but his hand passed through him like a ghostly apparition. All he felt was a shadow of the familiar warmth he associated with Dark. “You’re not here.” It wasn’t a question. Dark shook his head.

Jack noticed that he looked worn down, beaten down. He was thinner than he had been. His eyes held little life in them; they were a dull black rather than the shiny obsidian they had seemed before. His wings were curled under him like a blanket. They’d lost their luster and seemed scraggly, feathers loose and falling off. Jack reached out to touch them, but again his hand passed through. Dark’s eyes fluttered shut and he sighed before opening them again.

“So, you're dying?” Jack asked, his voice soft, like he was afraid to speak the words aloud.

Dark looked at him with calm, lifeless eyes. “Soon,” was all he said.

“Am I dead?” Jack asked.

“Yes,” Dark said simply.

"Ok." Jack nodded, glad at least that he was being honest with him for a change. “This is not a mental hospital.” Again, it was not a question. Jack had been sure of that for a while.

“No, it’s not,” Dark answered anyway.

Jack scooted closer to Dark, closer than he’d ever been to the demon, yet he couldn’t feel him, couldn’t feel the warmth the way he used to. “What is this place? Is this hell?”

Dark smiled weakly. “No, Jackaboy, I’m the one in hell.”

Jack was almost afraid to ask. “Is this heaven?” He breathed the question out already knowing the answer.

“No. You’re not in heaven.”

A single tear slipped from his cheek unbidden. Dark reached as if to brush it away, but his hand ghosted through him.

“Why?” Jack choked out. “What did I do wrong?”

“Oh, baby, you didn’t do anything. It’s not your fault. I'm sorry. I didn't know--” Anguish was written across Dark’s features and it was apparent in the tone of his voice. He scooted closer, and if he had been present, he would have been resting his forehead against Jack’s. “I can’t believe I really thought they’d take you to heaven," he said sadly. "You, who were marked by a demon from birth." He reached a hand down toward Jack’s chest.

“But,” Jack tried to grasp at understanding, but his head felt clouded, “but they said when I died, the mark you left on me would be loosed.” He resisted adding, “and I’d be free from you forever.”

“It was,” Dark said, his voice pained. “That’s why I am dying, but you didn’t make it to heaven, Jack. They wouldn't let you in because of your connection with me.” Dark was studying him with intense eyes, trying to gauge his reaction.

“Where am I then?” Jack swallowed heavily and looked away from Dark’s eyes.

“This is purgatory.”

Jack had a tenuous knowledge of Catholicism at best, but Dark already knew that. Of course he did, so he explained.

“Purgatory is a place between heaven and hell for those people who couldn’t quite make it to heaven but aren’t quite bad enough for hell.”

“So, I’m trapped here forever?” Jack was trembling slightly. He could almost feel Dark’s hand reaching up to comfort him. Almost.

“Not forever,” Dark said, but the way he said it wasn’t hopeful in the least. It scared Jack. “But you can’t go up, Jack. You can’t ever. Because you belong to me. Because you’re mine.” The way he said it sent shivers down Jack’s spine. And for the briefest moment, Dark’s eyes glowed with life like they once had, black and shining. Then just as suddenly, they were dull and lifeless again.

Jack knew exactly what he meant when he said up. There was only one thing up from purgatory just like there was only one thing down.

“If I can’t go up, then, what should I do?” Why he was asking a demon for advice, he didn’t know.

“I can’t take you down with me. It's not allowed,” Dark said. Jack was oddly disappointed. He shouldn’t want to be dragged to hell by a demon, he really shouldn’t, but all the same his heart sank when he heard the words. “But there is another way—” Dark began again. There was something in the words that made Jack wish Dark had never said them.

“What way?”

Dark’s hand was a shadow down Jack’s arm until it reached his bandaged wrists. “You can finish this.” He ran a translucent finger down the scars. “They won’t let you back in to Purgatory, and you’ll fall and fall and fall, and I’ll be there to catch you.”

Dark’s eyes were boring into his, all darkness and infinite depth. Jack swallowed. Could he do it? Would he really kill himself just so he could go to hell with a demon? He suddenly stood up out of the bed, and shook his head. Dark shifted off the bed after Jack, his wings rustling behind him. For the first time since Jack knew him, he looked unsure about what Jack’s next move would be.

“If I go to hell, who’s to say you won’t just kill me as soon as I get there?”

Dark’s eyes suddenly lit up in an inappropriately teasing manner. “Oh, darling,” he said patronizingly, “you’ll be in hell. There’s nowhere else to go if I kill you.” He considered for a moment. “I mean, I could kill you as many times as I wanted, but you’d always wake up again the next day. That’s part of God’s design when he made hell so that there's no escape. Don’t worry. You’ll never have to leave.”

Jack blinked slowly at the demon who was still smiling like this was no big deal. “No,” he said, scooting away from the demon, suddenly resolute. “I won’t go. I don’t belong in hell. I am—I was a good person.”

Dark’s eyes flickered with intensity. He stepped closer to Jack, trying to crowd him against to the wall. Jack backed up before realizing that Dark wasn’t actually there. He had no power over him. He walked through the demon, but as he did he felt some of Dark’s energy flow through him like a caress and he shivered. He noticed Dark doing the same.

“Get the fuck out, Dark,” he said, trying to sound determined, but it came out more pleading, desperate.

“You don’t want me to go,” he said, trying to inch closer to Jack, but there was an unsurety in his voice. “You’ll be alone here forever.”

Jack thought about that. He really would be alone forever here, but the alternative was a lifetime of torment in hell—with Dark. With Dark, a demon who would never love him, who would probably feed off his soul until he was a lifeless husk, never dying but never living.

“No. I can’t.”

Dark backed up like he’d been slapped. He looked suddenly even weaker, more faint and fading more each moment.

“Fine,” he said. “But if you change your mind—” Before he could finish he disappeared. Jack sighed after he left, less from a sense of relief, and more from a sense of emptiness, a hollowness in his soul that he know only Dark could ever really fill.

He was tired again. He was always tired, and he climbed on top of his bed once again. Something shiny caught his eye on the nightstand table. He shifted closer.

It was a knife, jagged and rough and impossibly old with what looked like rubies encrusted into the hilt. He grabbed it and stuck it under his pillow. He was never going to use it, but still, he had to be careful that one of the guards or Felix didn’t see it.

When he awoke, he saw Mark standing above him, and he had to keep himself from throwing his arms around the angel. Fuck he needed a hug right now. Mark’s wings were beautiful and golden, stretched out behind him. Jack noticed though that the tips of the feathers were singed like had stood too close to a fire.

Jack reached a hand out toward the angel unconsciously. “Why didn’t you take me up all the way, Mark? All the way to heaven?” he asked softly. Mark took his hand, and Jack felt instantly better. He would make everything better.

“I tried, Jack,” he said, sadder than he had ever seen him. “They cast me out, cast me down.”

An image sprang into Jack’s mind like a long-forgotten dream, of a golden angel clinging to him as he was cast out of a golden land, his wings catching fire as he fell down, down. He was falling too fast and he landed violently and suddenly to hard ground, wings wrapped around Jack like a protective shield. It was many moments before he was able to rise up and see where he was. A desolate land where all fallen angels went to live and work forever.

“I tried,” Mark said again.

“It’s not your fault.” Jack squeezed his hand gently. "I'm so sorry."

“I know whose fault it is,” Mark’s eyes were glowing and ablaze. “That fucker could have at least told me.”

“He didn’t realize they wouldn't let me in,” Jack said, defending the demon. Mark’s eyes snapped up to meet his.

“How do you know that?” he said, accusingly.

“I--I don’t,” but Jack was always a bad liar. Mark let go of his hand. Jack reached for it again pathetically, but Mark drew back. Jack whined in protest, and the angel smiled slightly, relenting and once again taking his hand. Everything was okay again.

“Did he come here?” Mark asked.

Jack nodded because Mark deserved to be told the truth.

“And did he try to get you to go with him?”

He nodded. “But I told him—”

“You should have gone with him.” Jack froze. He couldn’t have heard him right. “I mean it,” the angel said, “your soul is as much a part of Dark’s as it is a part of yourself. You stay here, and your soul will fester and rot without him. At least there, the fuck will keep you alive.”

“But he’s a demon—” Jack started.

“He’s half of you,” Mark said simply.

He swallowed heavily. He didn’t know what to think, what to believe anymore. There seemed to be nothing ahead of him but more suffering and more loneliness. Mark let go of his hand and made a move toward the door.

“It’s up to you, Jack,” he said sadly.

“Will you stay with me?” Jack asked, not ashamed of his neediness.

Mark considered for a moment before nodding and lying behind Jack, his arm wrapped around his slim waist, his wings tucked under and over Jack like a cocoon. Jack heard his mother’s singing in his head, sweet and pure like spring water. “If you’d like to swing on a star, carry moonbeams home in a jar—”

When he awoke, the knife lay next to his hand, and Mark was gone. He could reach his fingers a few inches forward, and he could easily grab the hilt. It was sharp, of that Jack was sure. It would take but the lightest pressure for him to run it down the vein of his wrist.

He absently wondered what dying a second time would be like. The first time had been peaceful and calm, like he was going home. Before he had time to process what he was doing, he clenched a hand around the hilt and dragged the blade along his wrist to break the bandages. Underneath were scars. Perfectly straight scars that Mark had made to bring him up and up to a place where he would see his mother again, where there would be no more tears, and life would seem but a dream. He cut the bandage from the other arm, accidentally nicking the skin. A drop of blood from his arm dripped onto the pure white bedspread, and he had the sudden desire to make everything red. Red like the stain on the floor, like that apple, like the blood under his skin.

He acted on this urge and drew the blade down the vein he knew would drain the most blood. He watched in fascination as the blood poured like a fountain out of him, onto the bed and onto the floor. His bleeding arm was starting to lose feeling, so he quickly took his hand and slit the other wrist before he became too weak. 

Dying, this time, was not like rising in peace, wrapped in soft wings, it was falling, plummeting. It burned like fire, like acid, like a thousand pinpricks of needles. He was screaming, screaming before he even hit solid ground.

When he did, it took him several long minutes to stand up. His legs felt weak and heavy, but his mind felt lucid in a way it hadn’t since he first entered Purgatory. He looked around.

Red. Everything was red. Red dirt, red sky, red eyes surrounding him, watching him.

Looking closer, he saw that they were demons, hundreds of feral, wild demons that licked their lips as they saw Jack. One began to advance quickly toward him, but another demon pushed him of the way to get to him first, and suddenly a fight seemed to break out between them.

Jack took the opportunity to run as fast as his weak and aching would carry him, but dozens of demons were right on his trail, some running on two legs, some on four. They were gaining on him. Fast.

Jack knew he couldn’t really die forever here, but that didn’t mean he felt like getting his soul ripped out by a hundred nasty demons only to wake again the next day to repeat the process.

He felt the ground tremble as something large and powerful landed on the ground behind his retreating back. He turned to see black wings rising from the small crater he’d just made in the hard-packed dirt. The other demons stopped short at the sight of him, like they were angry yet afraid.

The winged-creature turned to look at Jack. It was Dark, but he looked different. His face was drawn and pale, and when Jack looked closely enough, he saw that he was shaking like a drug addict going through withdrawals.

“Get down,” he said simply, and since Jack wasn’t really in a position to argue, he did what he'd asked, lying on the ground with his hands over his head like he’d done during the tornado drills at school.

A black light began growing brighter and brighter around Dark, and the air felt electric. Power coursed off him in waves as he raised his arms as if gathering some force of demon energy to himself. Suddenly he clapped his hands together and released a beam of energy forward to consume the demons who had been chasing Jack. He covered his head and didn’t open his eyes until he felt a hand touch his clothed shoulder. He was still wearing the white t-shirt and white linen pants that he had worn in the white room. They were soaked in blood, and he realized how out-of-place he must have look in hell where most of the demons were dressed in black shreds if they were dressed at all. Dark was wearing loose fitting black pants, but his wings prevented him from wearing a shirt. If Jack hadn't been so scared at the time, he might have appreciated the view.

Dark was wrapping a careful arm underneath Jack’s knees and another across his shoulders, lifting him up like he weighed nothing. Jack leaned his head against Dark’s chest, trying not to touch his skin, not sure what would happen if he did.

The demon took off, launching himself and Jack into the air. He looked down to see the carnage below him. Over a hundred demons lay dead by Dark’s hands. Jack forced himself to relax. If Dark wanted to kill him like he had those demons, he would have done it by now. Dark flew them over various terrains ranging from hilly to wooded, but red, always red.

They stopped in front of a large mansion, like what you’d see in gothic stories of monsters and vampires, decorated with ancient architecture and colored an ominous grey. A looming set of stairs led up to the mansion’s front door.

Dark flew to the top to set Jack in front of the wide, wooden doors, etched with forms of gargoyles and demons and all manner of screaming things meant to unsettle any intruder, Jack supposed. The door was unlocked, because who would actually bother to lock their doors in hell anyway? Dark beckoned him to come inside.

Jack stepped in after the demon. Inside was huge as well. The entrance hall alone was wide and vast, a chandelier hanging above. Ornate furniture and elaborate rugs covered every surface. It smelled old, like no breeze had passed through in a thousand years.  
It probably hadn’t, Jack thought.

Dark was staring at him intently, and Jack looked up to see that he looked tired, really, really tired. He was weakened, of that Jack was certain, and he looked on the verge of collapse. He staggered forward, and Jack instinctively reached to steady him, his hand accidentally brushing the bare skin of the demon's arm.

Both froze.

Jack didn’t feel anything unusual so much as he felt Dark feel something. Dark felt like lightning was flowing through him, sparking him alive with a red hot electricity. Jack met his eyes, hesitantly. Dark was already standing up straighter, as if even a moment’s contact with Jack’s skin had started to heal him.

Jack moved toward him, but the demon backed away.

“I’m not sure--I can,” he said, sounding pained. “I’m not sure I can stop if you let me touch you.” His hand was shaking with want and need and what seemed like an inner battle to control his urges. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he said, running a hand through his hair and laughing humorlessly. “Jack, if you could only see how you look down here in hell. How you look to those demons. How you look to me." His eyes burned into Jack. "Fuck. Why did I think this was a good idea?”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack descends into Hell.

CHAPTER 7

Jack got hungry in Hell. Really, really hungry.

When he had been in purgatory, he’d never felt hunger or pain or any human longing of any kind. He supposed that in Hell, all the sinful vices that he’d felt on earth were amplified, so that when he was hungry, he was ravenous. When he was thirsty, he was parched. And when he was horny, he was really, really fucking horny. And it seemed like he was. All the time. He’d been 18 when he died, a virgin, and Dark walking around winged and shirtless was not helping matters at all.

After refusing to touch Jack when he'd first brought him to the mansion, Dark had kept his distance, showing him to one of the dozens of rooms in the enormous mansion, and leaving him there to fend for himself. The bedroom was huge, with a vaulted ceiling and a bed big enough for four. The walls were painted a rich brown and tapestries displaying various gruesome, bloody scenes lined the walls. There were no windows in the room, but that was fine with Jack. He’d rather not see the blood redness outside his window at all hours of the day. It was never really light outside but it was never dark either, he noticed. It was like the sun was too close, but it gave off no comforting warmth to its inhabitants. It unnerved Jack, as he supposed, it was meant to.

Jack also noticed that time passed much slower in Hell. Probably one of God’s little touches to make it ever more miserable. On his first full day in the “Lake of Fire,” Jack spent his day wandering the mansion, at first looking for Dark, but, when he couldn’t find the demon, just looking around. Jack counted the rooms; there were fourteen total.

He finally found Dark’s room all the way across the mansion from Jack’s as if he wanted to be as far from him as possible. It was messy, to Jack’s annoyance. Clothes were strewn over the ornate bed and tossed carelessly on the floor. Jack almost considered taking some of the clothes. He was still wearing the blood-stained white pants and shirt, and he was pretty sure he’d start to smell soon if he didn’t change.

A guitar sitting in the corner of the room caught his eyes. It was the same as the one his dad had bought for him when he was thirteen. Dark would know that, of course. Jack smiled at the sight and picked it up, sitting on the edge of Dark’s bed. It felt good to hold the instrument again; it felt like home, and Jack began plucking a few strings until he found a familiar tune to play. He started to hum along with it, eventually singing softly.

He’d never missed home more.

As if to remind him, his stomach started to rumble painfully. He really needed to eat. He stopped playing and looked up. Dark stood in the doorway, his wings folded behind his back, his eyes black and shining.

“I always loved hearing you play,” he said softly, "because it’s the only time you ever really let go of the control in your life. Your soul never shines brighter than when you're play.” His voice sounded desperate and strained. His eyes were locked on Jack for a long moment. Jack moved to put the guitar back where he’d found it, and the demon tore his eyes away.

“I’m sorry,” Jack felt the need to apologize to the demon. “I was just looking around. I shouldn’t have been snooping in your room.”

Dark shrugged his shoulders and moved away from the door, gesturing Jack to follow. “I snooped in your room for eighteen years. It's only fair. Come on. We’re going shopping.”

Dark was already walking down the hallway before Jack got out a confused, “Wait, what?”

“You’re hungry, I know you are,” Dark shouted back at him as Jack hurried to catch up to him, “and you really need new clothes. So, yeah, shopping.”

Jack stared at him open mouthed. “Where? Down at Demons-R-Us, or something?”

Dark had the audacity to smirk at him. “Nope, we’re going up.” He led them down the stairs into the main living room area. An ornate fireplace was housed against the farthest wall. Against the other corner was a piano, a grand piano as far as Jack could tell. He suddenly had the image of Dark’s hands caressing the black and white keys, his wings stretched out wide behind him, losing himself in the music. He'd bite his lip in concentration as Jack came up behind him and snaked his arms across his bare chest, lower and lower until Dark finally stumbled over a note in frustration.

Jack really needed to get out of the house.

Dark walked up to the fireplace and pushed one of the stones. Like the fucking batcave or something, the fireplace began sliding to left to reveal a room about the size of a closet or an elevator.

“Up,” was all Dark said as he walked inside, beckoning Jack to join him.

What did he have to lose? He was already in Hell. How much worse could wherever they were going be?

Dark had been right. They were literally going up. As soon as Jack was inside the little room, it started moving, like an elevator but much faster, and it got really hot. Really hot, really fast. Jack’s skin crawled with pinpricks like a hundred scorching needles. Dark was looking at him, eyes narrowed and concerned.

He reached a hand out like he wanted to touch Jack, but drew it back, clenching it to his side helplessly. Instead he said, over the roar of the machine, “It’s almost done, darling. Hold on, okay?”

Jack gritted his teeth against the pain and nodded. He believed the demon, but the pain was worse than anything he’d ever felt. He sunk to his knees and clutched at his head as the fire under his skin intensified until he nearly passed out. Dark was fidgeting from one foot to the other as if willing the lift to go faster. At last it did stop and the door opened to reveal an open field that smelled of grass and fresh air.

Jack puked, shaking on the ground, but the pain was gone.

Dark waited some feet away from him, still shifting from foot to foot, biting his lower lip in concern.

Jack stood up slowly. He felt fine, like his skin hadn’t just felt like it was going to melt off his bones. Dark was looking at him, the same concerned expression. His wings were rustling in the breeze. And holy shit, there was a breeze and grass and a blue sky.

“Where are we?” Jack asked, not daring to hope.

“Earth, of course,” Dark said and started walking across the field like it was no big deal.

“What the fuck?” Jack said, and couldn’t help the smile from tugging at his cheeks as he noticed Dark’s smirk of his own. The demon was bouncing a little as he walked, like he was proud of himself. “Seriously, what the fuck?” Jack said, running a hand through his hair and laughing. 

Dark started picking up his pace and soon they were both running and laughing across the field. It would have looked ridiculous had anyone been there to see it, but as it was, there didn’t appear to be anyone around them. Jack inched ahead of the demon, but then Dark began to unfurl his wings to try to fly ahead of him.

“No you don’t,” Jack said and teasingly pulled on the corner of his wing to bring him to the ground. Dark fell on his back with a thud, and Jack jumped on top of him to keep him from flying off again.

Jack was still laughing when he looked down to see Dark’s face turned suddenly serious again. He was looking at Jack intently. Jack realized suddenly he was straddling Dark’s hips with his own. The demon’s wings were fully unfurled beneath the two of them. He looked down at the demon whose eyes were dark and shining and whose lips were full and inviting. Jack was still breathing as heavily as he had been when he was running.

Not breaking eye contact with the demon, Jack reached out and touched the feathers of his wing, running his fingers down the length of them. Dark shuddered underneath him but didn’t look away. However, his squirming underneath Jack was doing little to calm him, and he nearly moaned when Dark bucked up his hips to try to get away. Jack just pressed down harder on his hips and on his wings, enjoying this feeling of power over the demon who had had power over him all his life.

“Jack, stop,” he breathed out, but his eyes fluttered shut when Jack stroked the joint of his wing where it met his bare back. “Fuck,” he said, hand reaching up to try to push Jack off, but he swatted it away.

“You sure you want me to stop?” Jack said, not liking the unnatural, controlling tone of his voice. He pressed his hips into Dark’s experimentally, and felt that he was as hard as him. “Are you absolutely sure?” He leaned close to the demon’s ear and could feel the warmth radiating off him like black smoke.

“Please. Baby,” Dark said in barely more than a whisper, and the use of the nickname stirred Jack out of the power trip he had been on. Still, he found he couldn’t quite move off Dark, like breaking contact with him would hurt his soul.

“Why?” Jack asked, hating the pleading sound of his voice. “Fucking why won’t you touch me?”

“It’s not that easy,” Dark explained. “I’m afraid of what will happen if I do.”

Jack sighed in frustration and rolled off the demon, lying on his wing. He absently ran his hand through the feathers, inching his way across the feathers within inches of bare skin but never touching. “What are you afraid of?”

Dark was watching Jack’s hands with hooded eyes. “You know that demons feed off auras, right?”

Jack nodded. Mark had told him that.

“Well, yours is something special, the brightest I’ve ever seen, and it is a mirror image of mine, and I’m afraid that if I get too close to you, I’ll take all of it from you. Not because I want to kill you, but because I wouldn’t be able to stop.” He looked at Jack with pained eyes, eyes black and empty of anything human, but somehow still capable of some emotion. Jack knew that whatever Dark felt for him was a much more primal an urge than “love”; it was a hunger, a desire for power and for control. But still, there was something in the demon’s face that told Jack he really *didn’t* want to kill him, to feed off his soul or whatever shit demons did.

“What would it feel like?” Jack asked.

“I’m not sure. I’ve never been on the receiving end, but I can’t imagine it’d be very pleasant.” 

Jack paused a moment, a question burning on his tongue, but he was almost too shy to ask it. Fuck, why did he feel shy around Dark. He’d watched over him since before he was even born. He swallowed and ran a hand across the joint of his wing, a place he knew was most sensitive for the demon. He felt Dark tense. “What does it feel like for you?” Jack asked quietly, “to suck the soul from someone?”

Dark sucked in a breath, and his eyes fluttered shut. Jack didn’t think he’d ever seen a more beautiful creature, all angles and darkness, splayed out next to him, ready for Jack to take if he just inched his hand over a little more to the bare skin next to his wing. It was tempting. What if Jack just let himself fall to the darkness? Let Dark take from him the thing that made him human. What would he lose? He was already destined for Hell.

Dark was watching Jack with bottomless eyes. “It feels like you’re filling a hole inside you, a deep hole that you’ve had since the first moment of your existence. And when you take a little bit of someone else’s soul, for the briefest moment you feel what it would be like to be human, to feel something, and it’s the most terrifying and the most exciting thing in the world.”

Jack nodded, knowing he’d probably never really understand.

Dark sighed, “However, the feeling goes away too quickly and you’re left with the same emptiness. But with you--” He turned to his side, and the shifting of his wing brought Jack closer to his body. His hand brushed over Jack’s clothed chest and down to his stomach where a strip of skin was showing above the waistline of his jeans.

Jack could feel the warmth of his hand through the cotton of his shirt, and he held his breath as the demon’s hand inched closer to the bare skin. “With you,” he said, hand hovering dangerously close over his skin, “when I touch you I feel like I *could* fill that hole. That if I had part of your soul in me, I wouldn’t ever have to feel the emptiness again.” Jack felt him ghost one finger across the bare skin, touching so slightly that he was almost sure it was his imagination. He felt a pulling sensation where Dark had almost touched him, like something inside him longed to get out, to be one with the demon, but as soon as the feeling came, it was gone.

Jack looked at Dark whose eyes were staring with a neediness, a hunger that he hadn’t seen before. Scooting himself even closer to the demon, Jack whispered, “Then why don’t you fucking touch me then? It would solve all your problems.”

The demon’s eyes flickered down to Jack’s lips before returning to his eyes. “But your soul wouldn’t be the same without you to house it. In all your fucked up human glory. I can’t live without that, without you. You belong to me.” His voice took on a possessive tone. “You’re mine. I took you down to Hell because you will be with me forever; there is no other way for both of us to survive.”

Jack swallowed heavily. That thought really should have scared him, but he felt at peace. What the fuck was wrong with him?

Suddenly, Jack’s stomach growled noisily. Dark’s eyes suddenly lightened, and he stood up, rolling his wing so Jack slid off him onto the ground.

“Speaking of feeding and food—” He winked at Jack, a playful expression in the surface of his eyes. Jack looked at them deeper to see the strain and desperation that were a constant presence in the demon’s eyes.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack is not himself.

CHAPTER 8

They didn’t have to walk far before Jack began to recognize where they were, close to the city, surprisingly so.

“This is the portal I used to travel between hell and earth when I was watching over you,” Dark said. It should have sounded sweet, but it was stiff and businesslike, more a duty than anything romantic. Jack supposed it was his duty. Without Jack’s aura alive and well, the demon would have died. He was just life insurance to Dark. The thought made him sadder than it should have.

Jack’s stomach growled painfully and he was reminded of their reason for coming to earth in the first place. Dark turned to him as if he’d heard Jack’s stomach or sensed he was hungry or something.

“We’ll stop here,” he said, herding Jack toward a run-down grocery store to their left. As they neared the entrance, Dark playfully jumped on the motion sensor mat to see the automatic doors open. The cashier looked at the door, a confused expression covering his wrinkle-lined face. Dark jumped off the mat and then back on again. The cashier looked beyond Dark, squinting.

Oh, right. No one could see the demon except Jack, because Jack was oh-so-lucky like that. He wondered if anyone could see him. He was dead after all. His home was in hell. Maybe he was a demon, too.

“Dark, stop it,” Jack said irritably and stepped inside. The cashier greeted him but looked at him warily, noting his blood-stained clothes and haphazard appearance.

His hand reached under his counter as if for a weapon. “You all right there, son?” he asked cautiously. “I don’t want any trouble.” He pulled his hand up to reveal the butt of a rifle behind the counter. Dark practically growled as he moved to stand behind the cashier.

“No,” Jack said sternly to Dark, who was looking at the cashier with predatorily eyes. “I mean, no, I don’t mean any trouble, sir. I’m just picking up a few groceries,” Jack was quick to add. He eyed Dark, trying to urge him away from the man.

The cashier didn’t look any more assured, but he lowered his gun, returning to the newspaper he had been reading. Dark dragged his hand up the man’s spine, a wicked smile playing at his lips, and the cashier shivered as if suddenly very cold.

Jack grabbed a box of cookies off the shelf, but he kept the demon in sight, shaking his head at him. This wasn’t a bad man; he didn’t deserve whatever Dark had planned for him. He filled a basket full of other miscellaneous groceries. Dried goods and things he figured wouldn’t perish in hell. He almost smiled at how ridiculous his life—or death—had become. Almost smiled.

He took the groceries up front. How he would pay for them, he had no idea, but he figured he was already in hell, he probably wouldn’t be punished too much worse for actually stealing them. Still though, he’d never stolen anything in his own life and it didn’t feel right. Not to someone like this grocery store clerk.

The cashier was still reading, and as Dark pressed up behind him, his face grew more and more troubled. A single tear slipped down his cheek unbidden, and he hurried to wipe it away. He looked at Jack, face suddenly red and harsh.

“The fuck are you looking at, kid?” He glared at Jack. Dark ran a hand across the man’s neck, pressing closer and closer into the cashier. The man seemed to fume even more, chest heaving as though he would run around the counter and strike at Jack. “Get the fuck out of my—”

Suddenly, Dark disappeared from sight, and when the cashier looked at Jack again, it was with black eyes. Demon eyes, like Dark’s.

“Wh-what’s going on?” he stuttered despite himself. The man smiled a grin that looked strange on the old man’s face, but was still familiar to Jack. “Dark?” he asked tentatively. 

The man nodded. “I wasn’t sure if this would work.” The man’s lips moved but the sound that was emitted was like two voices laid over each other. It was creepy as fuck. He stepped around the counter toward Jack who backed away until he hit the wall with a thud. The man stepped close to him, his eyes demonic, his face wrinkled and very human.

“What did you do to him?” Jack asked, actually afraid of the demon for the first time since he’d initially met him.

“He’ll be fine--eventually,” Dark said, and he leaned into Jack’s neck as if sniffing him. “I forgot how good it feels to possess someone fully. All the human senses are heightened, and fuck, you smell so good, baby. And I can touch you without worrying about taking your soul.” He reached a leathered hand around Jack’s neck, practically purring at the contact. Jack swallowed back the revulsion he felt as the old man’s hand skidded up his shirt to the soft skin of his stomach. Dark was breathing heavily and he moaned in a voice that was like Dark’s but wasn’t quite right. “Your skin feels just like I imagined it would,” he said heavily. Jack was shaking. He didn’t want this. This wasn’t right. Dark’s fingers found the outline of a scar on his chest. “Where you fell off your bike,” he said. “I remember that day well. I tried to stop you from falling, but I couldn't. I never could.”

Jack looked into the demon’s eyes, and he thought that maybe if he concentrated on them rather than on the old man’s face or body that he could get past the sick feeling in his stomach. A demon’s eyes shouldn’t be comforting, endless black pools, but somehow Dark’s were. He leaned down as if to kiss Jack, but Jack turned his head away before his lips met his skin. He didn’t smell right, he didn’t look right, he didn’t feel like he imagined Dark would feel, he wasn’t Dark. As much as Jack wished him to be.

The man backed away from Jack, his hand lingering for a moment before sliding out from under Jack’s shirt and away from Jack’s neck. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said, putting a hand up to run through his hair in the nervous way Dark did, but this man had no hair and his hand froze on his balding head. “Fuck!” he shouted and punched the shelf next to Jack’s head, immediately shaking his hand in pain. “Fine, this isn’t working.” His voice sounded strained and distant, like he was losing control of the body he was in. Suddenly, the body slumped to the ground, and Jack knelt beside him, checking his pulse. It was several moments before he felt one, and he sighed in relief.

He saw Dark, back in demon form, leaning heavily against the counter. Pale and sweating profusely, he was struggling to catch his breath. Jack stood and walked toward him.

“You ok?” Jack asked, surprised at the honest concern in his voice. Dark nodded slowly, looking at Jack with heavy, lidded eyes.

“Who was that fucker you had a crush on last year?” the demon said suddenly, venom in his voice. “You worked with him, I think.”

Jack stared at him, confused. “I don’t—”

“William. That was it. God, I hated that guy, but I remember you thought about him while you jacked off sometimes.”

Jack couldn’t stop himself from blushing. Of course Dark would know that.

“He was ahead of you by a couple years in school, right?”

Jack nodded slowly. Where was he going with this? “Three years, yeah,” he said.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing a “back to school” backpack off a display and shoveled the food from Jack’s shopping basket into the backpack.

“What are you planning, Dark?” Jack said, eyes narrowed at the demon who was pointedly ignoring him. “Is this guy going to be okay?”

Dark glanced up at the nearly-lifeless body. “He’ll be fine. Be conscious in a couple hours.”

“And after that--?”

“He won’t remember anything that happened while I possessed him,” Dark said, zipping up the backpack and hoisted it over his shoulder. He had hidden his wings from Jack’s view, and he pulled on a touristy t-shirt he’d found on a display shelf.

“What are you planning on doing to William?” Jack asked hesitatingly.

“Well,” Dark said, matter-of-factly, “I’m going to possess his body, and then I’m going to fuck you.”

Jack froze and couldn’t stop his throat from going dry and his pants from tightening as the demon said the words out loud. He regained his senses when Dark walked toward the automatic door, a cool breeze hitting Jack’s face. “What? No,” he called, shaking himself to action, hurrying to catch up with him. “Dark, no.”

The demon was walking quickly along the walls of the store, headed toward the main road. “Dark, stop.” He ignored Jack, an excited little pep in his steps. Jack rushed to catch up with him and grabbed onto Dark’s shirt to push him into the wall. Dark laughed and moved to push Jack out of the way. Jack put an arm up against Dark’s chest, pinning him there with a strength he didn’t think he possessed. Dark’s eyes narrowed threateningly.

“What’s the problem?” he asked accusingly. “I know you want William. I’ve seen the way you look at him, the way you imagine him moaning your name as he takes you against a wall, the way you want him to swallow your cock until his eyes water and he chokes and begs for more.” Jack swallowed heavily but kept his arm tight against Dark. “So what’s the problem?” he repeated. “Is it me? Don’t you want me?” His tone was honest, earnest, surprisingly so. He lowered his eyes and dark eyelashes fell over dark eyes. He lifted his eyes, almost shyly, and pushed one leg between Jack’s. Jack moaned and fought the urge to rut up against the demon. Dark reached down to drag a hand down Jack’s chest, reaching to cup his crotch. This time Jack did buck up against the contact and he leaned open-mouthed against Dark’s clothed chest. 

“Fuck,” he panted. Dark found the outline of his cock and stroked it through the fabric. “Is this for me or for him?” he asked spitefully before pushing away from Jack to continue walking toward the highway.

As soon as Dark had turned the corner and was no longer visible, Jack leaned against the wall heavily for a long moment, willing his body to calm down. Could he fuck William, knowing that it was only because a demon was possessing him?

No. No. Why was he even considering this? He might be destined for hell, but even he had his limits. But still the thought of William—the popular boy, so beautiful and charming, who’d never paid a moment’s attention to Jack in school or at work—the thought of him begging to fuck Jack was pleasing. But when he closed his eyes to picture it, all he saw was Dark, eyes lack and empty, looking up at him and saying, “Don’t you want me?”

Jack took a long breath and started to walk quickly the opposite way from Dark. He needed to clear his head. He knew exactly where he was, only about five blocks from his old apartment. Maybe his dad was still there. Would he even recognize him? Maybe he was better without Jack.

He walked quicker and wondered when Dark would notice or care that he wasn’t following him. As he hurried past familiar landmarks and stores, he noticed that there were new once here and there. He even passed a grocery store where before had been an empty lot where the stoners went to smoke out at night. He couldn’t have been gone more than a month or two, what the fuck?

His apartment complex was run down, even more so than it had been before. He knew from years of coming back to the apartment late after work that if you turned knob on the front gate just so it opened up without a key. He smiled slightly when it creaked open and he stepped inside. There was still the same pool, but it had even more leaves and who knew what else floating on the surface. He walked up the rickety stairs to apartment B-233. The blinds were closed so he couldn’t peer in through the window. He raised a hand to knock on the door.

What would he say? “Hey, Dad. Yeah, I was dead—still am—but I’m here for a little visit and I just thought I’d say hey.”

He knocked anyway. He’d just decide what to say when he saw his dad. His palms were sweaty, and he ran a hand through his hair. His dad would say he needed a haircut, and holy shit, there was still blood on his clothes. What was he thinking?

He turned to walk away just as the door opened. There at the door was his dad, but he was older. Much, much older. Maybe sixty or seventy, his hair completely white, the wrinkles that had just barely begun to form were now deep set. He wore a dingy robe, but he was clean-shaven. That was a good sign. It meant he hadn’t been drinking, at least. 

He looked at Jack cautiously but there was no recognition in his eyes. “Can I help you?” he asked gruffly.

Jack’s heart broke.

He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, I think I must have the wrong door. I’m really sorry,” Jack said, starting to move away, feeling pinpricks behind his eyelids.

“That’s quite all right.” His dad started to shut the door, but stopped. “Do I, do I know you?” he asked, looking at Jack through narrowed eyes.

Jack shook his head, swallowing back tears. “No, sir, I don’t believe so,” his voice was quiet, and he walked away before he broke down completely.

Dark was waiting for him outside the front gate. Of course he was. He had a familiar bag in his hands. It was Jack’s old messenger bag, the one he’d used for school for three years before he died. It looked worn and tattered with age, and Jack snatched it from his hands.

“So, how long has it been, Dark?” Jack spat out, his tears turning to anger at the demon. A passerby looked at Jack, concern and fear in her eyes as she gave him a wide berth. Jack didn’t even care that the whole world thought he was shouting to himself in white, blood stained scrubs. He didn’t give a flying fuck what anyone thought because he was motherfucking dead and would never be one of them again. He didn't belong on earth any more than he belonged in hell.

“Not here,” Dark said quickly as he guided Jack toward a vacant apartment. He didn’t have to shove very hard to break the door open. Dark stumbled inside and Jack trudged in after him.

As soon as Dark shut the door, Jack turned toward him, shaking with anger and frustration. “How long, Dark? How long have I been dead?”

“Jack, you have to understand, time works differently on earth.”

“How long?”

Dark sighed. “Thirty years.” 

Jack stared blankly at the demon before leaning back against the wall. He ran a hand through his hair, ignoring the fact that he was starting to imitate Dark’s nervous gesture. Or maybe Dark had been imitating him all along. Or maybe they were becoming the same person. That last one seemed like the most likely explanation.

“So why didn’t my dad recognize me?”

“You’re marked for hell now, Jack. Those who are marked for heaven, like your dad, can’t look at you like they once did.” Dark was speaking softly as if trying to soothe Jack, and it annoyed him to no end. He looked at the messenger bag in his hands, and opened it carefully. Inside were some of his old clothes (now really old, apparently) and a photo that had always hung on the fridge of his mom, dad, and Jack, aged six. It calmed him to see the familiar thing.

“Is he ok?” Jack asked, not really all that angry anymore. Just tired. Tired of everything.

Dark nodded. “Yeah, he’s doing fine,” he said softly.

Jack nodded and put the picture back into the bag carefully. He then grabbed a pair of pajama pants Dark had packed for him. He started to take off his shirt, and Dark looked away.

“It’s not like you haven’t seen it all before anyway,” Jack said.

The slightest of smiles crossed Dark’s lips before it disappeared. “Yeah, but never when you knew I could see.”

Jack stripped off his clothes quickly and soon stood in front of Dark clad only in a pair of thin boxers. Strangely, he didn’t feel exposed. He supposed he was never not exposed in front of Dark who knew every detail about him, inside and out. He knew the motivation behind everything he did, why he got up in the morning, what he thought about before going to bed each night.

So surely he must know what Jack was thinking now. He took a step toward the demon.

“Jack, don't,” Dark said warningly.

Jack stepped closer to him until this time, it was the demon who was pushed up against a wall. “Please,” he said quietly, face inching closer to the demon’s, whose eyes darted down to Jack’s lips, desperation and longing in his glance.

“Jack, no,” he said again, but this time softer, less resolute.

“Just take it, Dark. Please. I have nothing left for me in heaven or earth. Just take my soul. At least then you’ll live forever, and I’ll be free. Please.” His bare chest was now touching Dark’s clothed one, and he could feel more than hear the demon breathing deeply as if trying to calm himself.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he said, but made no attempt to get away from him.

“I know exactly what I’m doing,” Jack said and he closed the distance between his mouth and the demon’s.

As soon as their lips met, Jack knew exactly what Dark had meant when he’d said that it would feel like a hollowness inside him was being filled. A wave of darkness, like black ink, flowed from his lips, across his skin, into his bones, and into his soul. And he needed more. So much more.

He deepened the kiss, and felt the demon growl low in his throat. His lips melded perfectly with Jack’s like they had been made for each other. He supposed they had. Up to this point Jack had kept his hands firmly clasped at his side, but he soon realized that he needed a lot more contact with Dark’s skin if he were ever to feel satisfied. If that hollowness inside him were ever to be filled. He wrapped a hand around the back of Dark’s neck, and pulled him even closer to him. Jack tentatively licked at the demon’s bottom lip, and he opened his mouth to let Jack taste even more. He tasted like smoke and fire and it nearly burned Jack but he couldn’t stop. He put a cold hand on Dark’s warm stomach, feeling the hard muscles contract underneath his fingers.

Suddenly, Jack started to see spots behind his eyelids and he opened and shut them to no avail. Instead of feeling like he was being filled up, he felt like the darkness was being forced into him. It was too much. Nothing was right anymore. Nothing would ever be right again. He felt a wave of despair and loneliness and every negative emotion he’d ever felt wash over him all at once. He was shaking, and he tried to pull away, but Dark turned them around so Jack was pinned against the wall. His wings unfurled behind him, and Jack saw that his eyes were bright, almost glowing, and his teeth were pointed and sharp.

He shook his head as the room started to spin. Then suddenly, everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cliffhanger! But the next chapter should be up very soon. Leave a comment if you liked it. I love writing this story but it takes a shit ton of work and any words of encouragement help!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when you start to lose your soul?

CHAPTER 9

When Jack regained consciousness he felt different. Really, really different, like he wasn’t himself anymore. Or maybe like he was more himself than he’d ever been. He reached a hand up to rub at his eyes. He noticed the veins on his wrist and up his fingers had turned black, like poison was running through them. Also, he felt sort of hungry, but in a strange way, more hollow than hungry, he supposed.

As he sat up, he realized that he was lying in a bed of what appeared to be a hotel room. He heard the shower running, and when he shut his eyes, he could almost see Dark as if he were in there with him as the steaming water dripped off his wings, sliding down his naked body, and onto the shower floor. He felt more than saw Dark slide a hand down to wash his well-toned chest, lingering on the line of hair that dipped down low on his hips, before reaching down and wrapping a hand around his semi-hard cock. Jack could feel it as if it were him touching himself, as if it were he who was about to come over his hand in the hot water.

Well, that’s definitely a new ability, Jack thought, willing away his own hard-on. He stood up to see that he was now fully clothed in a pair of his old pajamas. They were soft and familiar, and he felt a wave of appreciation flow through him for Dark’s forethought. He looked at himself in the mirror across from the bed and blinked.

He didn’t even look human anymore. At the top of his head was now a shock of green hair, glowing fluorescently like battery acid. His face was beyond pale, making his eyes seem bigger and darker than they ever had. The veins running up his neck were black like tar and mapped their way across his skin in thin, ugly lines. He looked down at his palm and saw that something had been burned onto it, like a branding. It looked to be some kind of crest, maybe a family crest of some sort, but more gruesome. It depicted a huge snake, obsidian black and deadly, coiled around an ancient gate, preventing any from entering or leaving. The mark was black, but the snake’s eyes seemed almost to glow through Jack’s skin, and he found he couldn’t look away. 

Was he even himself anymore? Would he ever be again?

He was only vaguely aware that the shower had turned off and the door opened moments later. It wasn’t until he felt Dark’s bare hand on the back of his neck that he startled and turned around.

“What the fuck happened, Dark?” he hadn’t meant for his voice to come out so harsh, but he was just confused and a bit scared. He wasn’t himself, and he didn’t like it. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing, Jack,” he said as if trying to calm him, but he knew that the demon himself wasn’t completely calm. He felt Dark’s emotions ripple through him. It was strange. He was feeling afraid like Jack, but whether it was fear for himself or for Jack, he couldn’t tell. It was more a fear of loss, of inevitable change. “Everything is going to be fine.”

Jack narrowed his eyes. “You know as well as I do that that’s not true.” He shrugged off the demon’s hand, immediately longing for the contact once again. When he was touching him, Jack could imagine that maybe everything would be fine as long as he was with Dark, but as soon as the contact was lost, he felt hollow and alone, much the same as he knew the demon felt. “Am I even human anymore?” he asked, the shake in his voice betraying him. 

Dark’s eyes blackened further, running down the length of his body. Jack shivered. “You’re definitely still human,” he said. “But when I touched you, you absorbed some of my aura, hence the—” He gestured toward Jack’s hair, veins, and hand.

Jack nodded. That would explain why could was suddenly ultra-attuned to the demon’s emotions, why could feel that even now, Dark was aching to touch his skin, to get another taste of him. “So I took some of your aura, and you took my soul?” Jack asked, but it wasn’t an accusation.

“That’s the strange thing,” Dark said, sitting cross-legged on the bed. “That’s what should have happened. I should have taken your soul within minutes, and then you’d have been left nothing but a shell, soulless and hollow. But instead, when I started to take your soul, it was like I was being filled without taking anything from you. It was like, as much as I took from you, I gave back to you with my own aura, like you were feeding from me just as much as I was feeding off you.” Jack cringed at the word “feeding”; it made him sound like some kind of parasite. Maybe he was. Maybe they were both parasites destined to feed off each other until they were both completely used up and hollow.

“So if you were ‘feeding’ me, too, then why did I black out after a couple minutes?” Jack asked.

Dark shrugged. “I guess that my aura is like a poison to you. You have to build up an immunity to it before you take too much of it. See, to me, you’re a life force. I need you in order to survive. Without you, I’d dry up and die within months. But for you,” he swallowed heavily, “for you, I’m just a drug, something you take to get a buzz. You’re better off staying away from me. You’ll only hurt yourself.” Jack felt, more than saw, Dark’s fingers curl in on themselves as if forcing himself to keep them away from Jack.

“But what if I like the drug?” Jack asked, stepping slowly toward the demon. He didn’t know if the demon was projecting on him or if he was projecting on the demon, but suddenly, he needed to feel his skin. To absorb him so that he could feel whole once again, even if it was bad for him, even if it killed him.

“Jack,” Dark said warningly, but he swallowed slowly. Jack reached a thumb to Dark’s full lower lip, tracing the edge softly. Everywhere he touched seemed to glow and burn inside the demon, Jack could feel it. Dark’s eyes fluttered shut. “Fuck, baby.” He reached a hand up to Jack’s wrist, dragging a finger along the veins and scars there. Everywhere he touched turned black, and he’d been right, it did feel like a drug, and Jack needed more.

He straddled the demon’s hips, feeling Dark shaking slightly with the force it took to control himself, to keep his hands clenched tight at his side. Jack leaned close to him and in the demon’s eyes, he could see his reflection. He looked dark and predatory. He didn’t feel like himself but he couldn’t quite stop. “What’s wrong, Dark?” he whispered, his lips ghosting over the demon’s neck, burning their mark into his skin. “Don’t you want me?” he said, echoing Dark’s earlier words.

The demon gave a shuddering sigh as Jack bit down on his neck, a brief moment of pain before Jack licked it better. “You know I do, but—” Jack cut him off with a kiss, a proper kiss long and deep. He felt the darkness enter him, and it spread under his skin making him feel powerful and invincible. He pushed Dark roughly down onto the bed and crawled on top of him.

“But what?” Jack said, almost cruelly. The darkness had nearly consumed him, but he shook himself and fought through it. He dragged a hand across the muscles of Dark’s smooth chest, stopping at the base of his neck. A sudden urge to dominate the demon, to make him beg for what he needed overwhelmed Jack. He sat up on Dark’s hips to gain better leverage and wrapped his fingers around the demon’s neck. Dark moaned into the pressure, writhing underneath Jack.

“You like that, huh?” Jack said in a ominous tone that wasn’t his own. He ground his hips down into Dark and thought that maybe he could come from just this. From seeing Dark panting underneath him in pain and pleasure, from the thrill of the power that was coursing through him. He tightened his grip, and Dark clenched the sheets tightly in his fists. Jack looked up to see the mirror across the bed, but the eyes that met his own were not his eyes. They were almost completely black, like Dark’s and they looked possessive, evil. Jack was suddenly afraid of himself, of what he was becoming. Tearing his eyes away from the mirror, he quickly let go of Dark’s neck and rolled onto his back, onto the demon’s wing.

Dark gasped and sucked in deep breaths, coughing slightly. Jack squeezed his eyes shut. God, he felt like such an asshole. “Fuck, Dark, I’m so sorry—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Dark said, hoisting himself over Jack, careful not to touch any bare skin. “You can’t just do that to me and then leave me here.” His voice was dark and needy as he shifted so one leg was between Jack’s. He could feel how hard the demon was through the leg of his pajamas, and he reached a hand up to touch Dark chest. He grabbed his wrist, causing a new wave of need run through Jack, but the demon pinned his wrists over his head with a superhuman strength, using the sheet as a thin barrier so he didn’t touch Jack’s skin. Jack moaned at the loss of contact. “Don’t touch me, Jack,” Dark’s voice was deadly serious, “or else I’ll take you back to hell and never bring you back.” Jack swallowed, but held still because he was pretty sure Dark was being totally serious.

The demon lowered himself against Jack’s hip and slowly began to rut against him, seeking the friction that both of them craved. Jack bucked up against Dark, careful to avoid touching his skin, but it wasn’t enough. He knew nothing would ever be enough with Dark. He’d always crave more, like a drug, like a sick drug that would one day strip him of everything that once made him human.

He moaned as he felt his cock brush against Dark’s through the thin fabric of his pajama pants. Dark lifted himself off Jack suddenly and he whined. “Can you keep still if I try something?” Dark said, his voice sounding as strained and desperate as Jack felt.

Jack nodded. He’d do anything for him.

He felt Dark get off the bed, and fucking hell, if he was planning on leaving him blue balled once again, he swore he’d kill the demon right then and there. Dark was rifling through Jack’s old backpack and came up with an ancient looking condom packet. Jack threw an arm over his eyes. “Oh my God,” he groaned.

“I remember when you bought these things. It was the night before William’s party that you’d been invited to,” Dark said, crawling back on top of Jack, a smug smirk on his face. “You were so optimistic that it would finally be the night he finally noticed you with your perfectly styled hair, wearing that shirt with the band on it that you knew he liked and those trousers that made your ass look so good.” As if for good measure, he began to slide Jack’s pajama pants down his thighs. Jack kicked them off. “That was the night you were supposed to lose your virginity,” Dark said, putting a palm to Jack’s boxers, touching the top of his thigh, his hip, everywhere but where Jack wanted him to touch.

“W-what do you mean?” he breathed out, forcing himself not to grab the demon’s hand and force him to touch him.

“I couldn’t stand to see you with him. He wouldn’t appreciate you; he’d just use you, so I stopped you from going. Your boss called you in for an extra shift that night, remember?” he said, pressing his lips to the cloth of his boxers, right at his hips. Jack was having a hard time formulating any coherent thoughts, but he nodded. He really should be mad at Dark for being such a cockblock to his 16-year-old self, but there’d be time for that later.

“You were so frustrated when you came back from work that night,” Dark said, mouthing his way across his boxers. “You came in the shower and then in bed, and then you dreamed of William and came again during the night. And do you know how fucking frustrating it was for me,” his mouth was close, so fucking close, and Jack was shaking with need, “to watch your clumsy hand stroking yourself so artlessly when I knew how much better I’d be at getting you off. How one fuck with me would ruin you for William, for anyone else, forever.” His mouth was hovering right over Jack’s cock. “Mine,” he whispered, hot breath against sensitive skin. “Forever mine.” 

“Please,” Jack nearly begged.

Dark finally put his lips against his cock through the fabric of his boxers and Jack had to grip at the sheets to keep from reaching for Dark’s head, to push him closer to him until he became a part of him completely. His tongue dragged up the length, finding that one spot right underneath the tip where Jack was the most sensitive. Of course Dark would know it was there.

“Did you get off watching me?” Jack breathed out, picturing the demon touching himself in his bedroom, his head thrown back as Jack came not feet away.

Dark grunted and tried to take his cock in his mouth, but the fabric blocked him, and he groaned in frustration.

“Please, touch me, Dark,” he pleaded. “I’ll be good, I promise.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about,” Dark said ominously. He handed Jack the condom packet. “Put this on.”

“This is like thirty years old,” Jack said. “It’s gonna break or something.” But he pulled his boxers down his hips and rolled the condom over his aching cock, dripping with precum. Dark was watching his every movement, lip caught between his teeth, and fuck, if that wasn’t the hottest thing Jack had ever seen.

“Move your hands,” Dark ordered and Jack did because he couldn’t really refuse him anything at this point. “If this breaks, we have to stop,” he explained to Jack who sent up a prayer to whatever god was still on speaking terms with him that this was some super-strength condom or something.

Then suddenly the demon’s tongue was sliding across the length of him, careful not to touch any bare skin. Slowly he brought his lips, those perfect fucking lips, up to the tip of his cock and he wrapped them tightly around the tip, watching Jack with intense eyes as he lowered his mouth down the length until he stopped just millimeters from where the condom ended. The demon’s self-control was fucking incredible because Jack felt like he was about to come undone right then and there. Dark picked up speed ever so slightly, still cautiously keeping away from any skin, and it was driving Jack insane. He had to flex his leg muscles to keep himself from bucking up into Dark’s mouth.

“Your fucking face, Jack. Jesus Christ,” he moaned as he slid his mouth off his cock to start stroking him, black, soulless eyes never leaving Jack’s face. Suddenly Jack felt that familiar darkness begin to flow through him, but this time heightened by a thousand and he realized the fucking condom had snapped. Dark let go with a start, panting and backing away off the bed, running a shaky hand through his hair.

“Fucking nope,” Jack said, and wrapped a hand around his cock. If he couldn’t touch him, at least he wanted Dark to watch him, and he knew that whatever connection they had would make him feel every stroke, every spasm that waved through him. He watched with hooded eyes as Dark crawled across the floor, stopping at the edge of the bed, watching him with dark pools of desire and frustration. He reached a hand down into his own pants and Jack watched his face go slack as he began stroking himself in time with Jack. His obscene mouth was open, but he kept his gaze steady on Jack.

“Jesus, I’m gonna—” Jack moaned feeling his body begin to convulse in an orgasm that shook his whole frame. He heard—no, saw—no--he fucking felt Dark come with him, a spasm shaking his own body.

When he opened his eyes he saw the demon perched over him, eyeing Jack’s hand which was still clenched around his cock. Jack pumped himself once more and a single drop of cum came out the tip. Dark leaned down and carefully, ever so carefully, licked it off. Just that tiny bit of contact washed through Jack like a wave, and he shuddered with the thrill of the darkness inside him.

He knew Dark felt the same, for he flopped down beside him, practically glowing. “Fuck, you taste so good, Jack,” he breathed. Jack leaned forward so Dark could spread out his wing underneath him. The demon wrapped his wing around Jack protectively.

“Mine.” And Jack wasn’t sure anymore if it were his voice or Dark’s saying it. 

 

________________________________________  
That whole day, Dark acted distant toward Jack, wearing a long sleeved shirt, so there was little danger of making contact with Jack’s skin. Jack was bundled up as well in a scarf, hoodie, and jacket, but that had more to do with the fact that he was freezing than anything else. Despite the cold air outside, Dark had kept the air conditioning running in the hotel room as if he were in danger of overheating, and Jack sort of hated him for it as he flipped through the channels, huddled underneath the bedspread. He was glad to see that despite the fact that it’d been nearly thirty years since he died, there was still remarkably little to watch on television. The same shit they’d been playing thirty years ago was still playing, just with different actors, slightly different plots.

Dark had been pacing back and forth in the hotel room for nearly an hour. Occasionally he would stop to sit down on the chair next to the bed, but he would soon get up, running a hand through his hair and looking nervously out the window.

“Looking for someone?” Jack asked him casually.

“No—I just, no. I need to go out for a couple hours, ok?”

Jack slid out from under the covers and moved to stand up. “Ok, let me just grab my shoes.”

“No, I mean alone,” his voice sounded strained. Jack approached him slowly, but Dark stepped back, putting a defensive hand up. He licked his lips, running a shaky hand through his hair until it stood straight up on end. “I need to--I need to feed, or I’m going to go mad.” 

Jack felt a pang of irrational jealousy wash over him. He should be enough for Dark. He was the demon’s life support after all, Dark had said so himself. “Oh, ok,” Jack said quietly. Jesus, when had he become such as overpossessive little fuck.

Dark cocked a head at him curiously, like he was trying to understand Jack’s human emotions. Jack held out his hand toward Dark, palm up, so the mark there was clearly visible. His veins were no longer black, but he’d be lying if he said his skin didn’t itch for more, if he said he didn’t want Dark to possess him once again, to fill him with that darkness that had burned its way into his soul.

He put his palm on Dark’s clothed chest. The heat from the demon’s body seemed to burn into his hand in a way that made him shiver with need, and when he drew his hand away, he saw that the strange marking was black like smoke.

“It’s the mark I put on you when you were a baby,” Dark explained. “The mark that tied your soul to mine. It didn’t become visible until you touched me for the first time.”

“What does it do?” Jack asked, taking a step even closer to the demon. Dark shrugged.

“It’s nothing really,” he answered. “It just serves to mark you as mine to any demon or angel that sees you.”

Oh, right, that was nothing, Jack thought humorlessly. No big deal. It just helped everyone identify who he belonged to, like a dog with a fucking collar. The thought should have disturbed Jack more than it did, but deep down he really wished Dark had the same mark tattooed on his skin so no one else could ever touch him. Mine, the word etched across his mind unbidden, and he shook his head to clear his thoughts.

Dark was still looking at him curiously.

“Can I come with you?” Jack asked, reaching his palm to Dark’s chest once again. The demon started to back away. “I won’t touch you, I promise,” Jack said, reluctantly drawing his hand back to himself. “And I won’t interrupt what you do.”

Dark looked at him skeptically. “You won’t like it,” he said. “It’s necessary for me to hurt humans in order to feed, and I know how you--”

“You think I care about these fucking humans?” the venomous words escaped his lips before Jack even realized what he was saying. He clamped a hand over his mouth. Where did that come from? He was good person, really he was.

Dark laughed, a strange, harsh sound. “Don’t worry, hell changes everyone,” he said. “Even someone as pure and as good as you.” He glanced at Jack with hollow, hungry eyes, stepping closer to him as if against his own will. “Fuck, you don’t even know what you do to me, do you?”

Jack was pretty sure he had an idea, and as his marked hand found its way back onto Dark’s chest, he realized just how much he needed another taste, another hit. He skidded his fingers up the warmth of his clothed chest to the edge of his neck where he could see the demon’s pulse beating rapidly. He could feel his heartbeat under his chest. Jack licked his lips and Dark followed the movement with hooded eyes. Just one taste. That’s all he needed to satisfy him. If he could just have one—

Dark stepped away suddenly, shaking his head. “I’m going,” he said quickly, confidently, though Jack saw his hand shaking by his side, like he was barely keeping himself under control. A new kind of darkness coursed through Jack as he thought about how far he could push the demon before he lost all control. Before he surrendered wholly to him. 

God, he used to be so innocent. 

“I think it’s best if you stay here,” Dark said, his voice low and raspy, and Jack didn’t argue with him. He moved toward the door. “Don’t let anyone in except for me, ok?” he warned. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Eat some food. You haven’t eaten enough.”

“Yes, mother,” Jack tried for a teasing tone, but it came out weak and small. Dark paused only a moment before turning the handle and letting himself out.

It was twenty minutes before Jack started to feel the symptoms of withdrawal. He knew exactly what this was. His dad, when he’d been an alcoholic, had gone through the same thing every time he tried to quit. Palms sweaty, hands shaking, lips dry, and skin that crawled and itched with the need for something he needed but couldn’t have. He tried sleeping, tried pacing, tried eating, even tried touching himself, but nothing satisfied him. There was only one thing that could satiate him, he knew that.

After an hour, it was nearly unbearable. His head pounded, his throat felt rough and sore, and his palm, marked by Dark, burned like acid. He tried putting it under cold water, but that made it so much worse that he nearly screamed in pain. Holding the hand close to his side, he lay in a fetal on the bed, shaking with fever and with cold.

He wondered if he would still be feeling this way if he had he never kissed Dark that night. If he’d never touched the demon, he could have handled the absence, but he now knew the poison in Dark that made him feel complete, that got under his skin like sweet drugs. Without it, he felt hollow and cold.

He heard a knock at the door, and rushed to open it. Oh, thank fuck. He wouldn’t even touch the demon. Just being near him again would quench this need in him. His hands trembled slightly as he unlocked the door.

“Jesus, it took you long enou—”

“I’m not Jesus, but I can get him for you if you’d like. You’d have to make an appointment of course, but I think he had a cancellation on Friday, so--” It was Felix, looking as dapper as ever in a three-piece suit and decorative walking cane. “Can I come in, please?” he asked, already stepping inside.

Jack moved out of the way and closed the door behind him as Felix dusted off the chair next to the bed with a pocket scarf and sat down.

“So, Mr. McLoughlin. I hear you took a little fall.”

Jack sat down cross-legged on the bed, trying to control the shake in his hands. He nodded. “Didn’t really have a choice,” he said.

“See that’s why I’m here. I have it under good authority that you were under demonic influence when you, you know—” He slid a finger across his throat. “And if that’s the case, then we do not hold you responsible for your actions and therefore, would grant you your place back in purgatory on the fast track to heaven.”

Jack sat back heavily against the headboard of the bed. “And if I wasn’t under demonic influence?”

“Well—either way, you can’t stay on earth, Mr. McLoughlin. You are destined for eternity, and the only thing we must now decide is where you’ll be spending it.” 

If he went back to purgatory, his tie with Dark would most likely be broken. He thought about the drink they’d given him that made all the problems of life fade away. The thought of living his life under such delusion was not as unappealing as he would have thought. It was better than the alternative: a life in hell with a demon who was incapable of love, and furthermore, who couldn’t touch Jack without taking his soul from him.

This really should be a no-brainer.

And yet.

“Could I give up my place in heaven for another’s?” Jack said quickly.

Felix shifted in his seat and looked at him puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“If I was under demonic influence, if that was the only reason I ‘fell,’ could I give up my place in heaven to someone else?”

Felix was not even feigning a smile. He leaned forward in his seat and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. “And you would go back to hell, willingly?”

Jack swallowed and nodded.

Felix leaned back in his chair. “Well, it’s an unusual request, but it’s been done before. Mothers have taken the place of their murderous sons in hell. Once a pair of twins traded places in heaven and hell because one of them had committed suicide, and that’s a no-no in heaven. So, yes, it can be done. Who do you have in mind, Mr. McLoughlin?”

“Mark.”

For the first time since he’d known Felix, he saw him briefly lose his composure as his cane slipped out of his hands and fell to the floor with a soft thud. “Mark, your guardian angel?”

“It’s my fault he’s in purgatory,” Jack explained. “He doesn’t deserve that.”

“But you don’t deserve hell either, Mr. McLoughlin,” Felix said, and Jack was surprised at the sincerity of his tone. “You were—are a good person.”

“And Mark is a good fucking angel, as you well know,” Jack said. A small smile, a genuine smile tugged at the corners of Felix’s mouth.

“Yes, he is,” Felix said, picking up his cane, “and I’d be lying if I said it wouldn’t be nice to have him back working for me in heaven. I’ve missed the bastard, and he’s good at his job.”

A smile tugged at the corners of Jack’s mouth like a foreign thing. “Is that a yes?”

Felix shifted in his seat. He looked almost giddy for someone who was about to tell Jack if he was going to spend eternity in hell or not. “It’s a maybe. I need to check with the boss and see if that is even possible. I don’t know of any precedent for this. As far as I’m aware no human has ever offered to take the place of a fallen angel before.”

Jack felt mildly proud of himself. Maybe he was a good person after all, even if the burning mark on his palm suggested differently.

“So you will sign saying that you were under a demon’s influence when you took your own life,” Felix looked at him seriously.

Jack nodded. Felix looked at him skeptically but didn’t question him. What was a little lie amongst all the other, greater sins in his life?

Felix pulled out a folded stack of ancient-looking papers from his suit coat pocket. He patted his chest until he found a regular ball-point pen, not a quill and ink like Jack had been half-expecting.

“Ok, if you’ll sign here,” he pointed at the paper, “and here.” Jack’s hand shook slightly as he signed his name, once, twice. Once he was done, Felix folded the paper and put it back in his pocket with a smile. He held out his hand for Jack to return the pen. As Jack handed it to him, Felix clutched his fingers for the briefest moment. “Thank you, Jack,” he said simply before releasing his hand and returning the pen to his pocket.

Felix stood to leave. “We’ll be in contact with you as soon as the board has reached a decision,” he said, opening the door. “And one more thing, Mr. McLoughlin.” He turned toward Jack who was holding the door open for him. “Don’t fall in love with Dark. No one who ever fell in love with a demon lived happily. They have no soul, remember that.”  
Jack wanted to protest, to say that, of course, he would never fall in love with the demon, but he choked on the words and simply nodded.

“Have a nice day, Mr. McLoughlin,” Felix called out as his wings became visible behind him, unfurling in their silvery majesty, and he flew away.

Jack closed and locked the door, lying down on the bed. His head still ached, and his palm still burned, but he fell into a restless sleep anyway. He was startled awake by a knock at the door. Jack knew it was him, he could feel it in the way his skin pulsed at the proximity. He took a deep breath to keep himself from jumping the demon as soon as he came in.

As soon as the lock was turned, Dark rushed in. He was smiling, but it was a forced sort of grin, and he gave Jack an apologetic glance. Jack stepped back nervously as he saw that there was another demon behind him, a bigger demon with impossibly sharp teeth and fingertips that looked like they could slice through metal. The demon shut the door behind him, and smiled with sharp teeth at Jack.

“Fuck, Dark, look at him,” the other demon said, eyes raking over Jack like a piece of food. “You didn’t do him nearly enough justice. That aura of his could sustain you forever.” He neared Jack who took a step back fearfully.

He felt Dark come up behind him, hips pressed flush against his backside. One arm snaked its way across Jack’s chest, and the other ran down his sleeve until he touched the bare skin of Jack’s hand. He forced himself not to moan at the contact, at the rush of dark energy that flowed through him like a poison. Dark lifted up Jack’s palm so the other demon could see the mark which was now pulsating and nearly glowing under Dark’s touch.

“Sorry, Raj,” he told the other demon, “he’s already been marked.”

“Pity,” said the demon, Raj apparently. “There are ways around a mark though, as I’m sure you’re aware.” There was a threat underlying the tone. Dark pressed even closer to Jack, dragging a finger absentmindedly up the vein of Jack’s wrist, knowing it was sensitive, knowing it was a pressure point for him. His head rolled back against his will, resting on Dark’s shoulder. Fuck, why was he doing this now of all times?

Raj licked his lips and swallowed. “You have him well trained,” he said, clearly referring to Jack. He thought about what he must look like to Raj, to Dark, body pressed up against him, hair tousled, lips parted and wet, skin pulsating with a strange mix of dark and light aura. 

“Yes,” Dark purred. “You’re a good little pet, aren’t you?” He petted Jack’s head gently before pulling his hair back with a rough tug. Jack bit his lip to keep from moaning, not even caring that two demons were treating him like a fucking dog.

“You really think you can keep him away from the other demons forever?” Raj asked, his tone both teasing and threatening. “Better to just take his soul now and save yourself a lot of trouble down the road.”

“Maybe I will,” Dark said, dragging a hand down to where Jack’s shirt met his pants, lifting the hem until the skin of Jack’s hips and stomach were exposed. His finger skimmed across the bare skin, and that familiar tugging sensation overwhelmed Jack. He needed more and he arched into the touch just as Dark withdrew his hand.

Raj was looking at them with eyes as black as Dark’s but with considerable more malice. “Fuck, Dark, you know how to pick them,” he said, a nervous laugh coating the bitterness underneath. “Can I—just one little—” He moved as if to wrap a hand around the back of Jack’s neck.

Dark nearly snarled, extending his wings to their full length and wrapping them around Jack in a possessive gesture. “Raj, go. You’ve seen him. Now, go, and warn the others to stay away.” It was clear from his tone that Dark outranked Raj in whatever demon system there was.

Raj backed away reluctantly, giving Jack a look that clearly said, “This won’t be the last time we meet.” Jack shivered and slunk back even further into Dark. Once the demon left, Dark released Jack from his grip which he hadn’t even realized was so tight. He stumbled backward.

“What the fuck was that?” Jack asked, both angry and confused and frustrated.

“I met him while I was out hunting, and he knew about you,” Dark said, running a frustrated hand through his hair. “Fuck, everyone knows about you, and they think that they can get to you when I’m not watching. I needed to show him that you belong to me, that anyone who touches you or tries to take your soul has me to answer to. He’ll go and tell the lesser demons not to fuck with you, and it’ll be fine. It’ll be fine, baby.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than anyone. He sat down on the edge of the bed, looking small despite his nine-foot wingspan. “I’ll protect you, I promise, if it means destroying heaven and hell I won’t let them get you, ok?”

Jack approached him as he continued to mumble promises to him. He stood over the demon and ran a hand through his fiery red hair, in the same way Dark did when he was scared or frustrated. “Shhh,” he said, soothingly, pulling Dark’s head toward him. The demon lay his head on Jack’s stomach, wrapping a arms around Jack’s back in the closest thing Jack had had to a hug in who knew how long.

“I took three souls tonight,” Dark whispered as he pressed his lips onto the skin right above Jack’s pants. He tugged at the hem of Jack’s shirt until he lifted it over his head. The demon skimmed a hand across his chest, leaving a fire inside Jack everywhere he touched. He could see himself reflected in the demon’s eyes as his veins turned black, as his eyes darkened.

“Yeah?” Jack breathed, as Dark ran a finger over the scar on his chest. “What else?”

Dark’s tongue flicked out to taste the skin underneath him. “Fuck, you taste so good,” he panted into Jack’s skin.

Jack snaked a hand into the demon’s hair and pulled him back so he would look at him. Dark bit his lip, willing and ready to do whatever Jack asked him, and it gave Jack a surge of dark power that he’d been craving. “Answer the question, Dark,” he said in a commanding voice, slowly pushing Dark back on the bed and climbing on top of him, his skin thrumming each time he made contact with the demon.

“One was a man, a rapist. He was marked for hell already. He only took some of his soul and he lived,” Dark said, hissing in a breathe as Jack’s hips pressed into his.

“Yeah?” Jack said, struggling to maintain his composure as Dark raised his hips needily to meet Jack’s. “What else?”

“The other was a woman who was destined for heaven, but just barely. She’s been cheating on her husband for months, and she lied about—oh, fuck,” Dark cried as Jack cupped his half-hard cock through his pants.

“Tell me more,” Jack breathed out heavily. He put his marked palm experimentally against Dark’s chest and the energy inside the demon rushed through Jack like a direct channel. Dark must have felt it too, as he threw his head back and clutched at the sheets. 

“She lied about—fuck, fuck—beating her kids. But I only took part of her soul, too,” Dark said in between whimpers and little moans for more. Jack began unbuttoning the demon’s pants, reaching inside to wrap a hand around his cock, using his boxers as a barrier. As far gone as he was, he knew that touching the demon fully like that would be like an overdose. He didn’t know if he or Dark could handle that right now.

“And the third one?” Jack asked, watching Dark’s eyes squeeze shut and his mouth drop open as he ran a thumb on the sensitive underside. He could feel the start of precome through the thin boxer shorts.

“Jack, don’t make me say—”

“Fucking tell me,” Jack said, stroking him faster. Dark threw an arm over his eyes and shook his head. Jack pushed it away and pinned his hands over his head. “No, I want to hear you say it out loud.”

“No,” he said firmly. “I can’t—Jesus Christ, Jack.” He could feel that Dark was close, his body was tense and his lower abdomen was shaking. Jack moved his marked palm to Dark’s cock and the sensation increased a hundred fold, Jack could feel it, and Dark moaned, loud and filthy shuddering underneath Jack as he came hard in his boxers.

Jack removed his hand slowly, leaving Dark on the bed, pants hanging halfway down his legs, wings splayed out underneath him. Jack lay down next to Dark, his cock almost fully hard although neither he nor anyone else had touched it.

“Who was the third one?” he asked quietly, already feeling the effects of the darkness wearing off now that he was no longer touching Dark.

Dark was still breathing heavily, looking straight up at the ceiling. “It was William. He was marked for heaven. He had two kids. I took all his soul,” he said stoically.

Jack nodded slowly. He knew. He had known since the first time Dark had told him he needed to feed that he’d go to William. “Why did you take all his soul?” Jack asked softly.

“Because, I thought he would be like you,” he said so quietly Jack almost didn’t hear him. “I thought he could maybe sustain me the way you can.”

Jack swallowed. “And what did you learn?”

Dark was silent for a long moment. When he finally spoke, the words tumbled out of his mouth, desperate and hopeless. “I learned that nothing will ever satiate me until I take your soul completely for my own,” he said. “And that once I take your soul from you, I’ll become immortal, but you’ll be gone and nothing will ever satisfy me again for all eternity.” It was the closest to a statement of love he’d ever receive from the demon.

The darkness in Jack’s chest practically hummed at the words. He curled up behind Dark and wrapped an arm around his waist tightly. “Someday, you’ll take my soul from me, Dark,” he said softly. “And I will give it to you freely.” And it was the closest statement of love he could ever give to the demon.

_______________________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck this was a long chapter. I love everyone who is reading and commenting/leaving kudos. You guys give me life.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack saves Mark and the Devil shows up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: some breath-play, questionable consent, mentions of rape and violence--please message me if you have concerns before reading.

CHAPTER 10

It wasn’t until three days later that Jack realized he hadn’t eaten in nearly a week, yet he didn’t feel the slightest bit hungry. If anything he felt stronger, like a buzz of electricity was constantly thrumming inside him. He could tell Dark felt the same, even though he still tried his best to stay away from Jack, wearing more clothing than his unnaturally high body temperature needed, sleeping on the far side of the bed, but Jack found little ways around it.

He’d walk up behind Dark and drag a finger across the bare skin of his neck, sliding a hand down the front of the demon’s shirt, and as the demon tried to keep his head from rolling backward against Jack’s chest, energy would just begin to course through his veins. But always Dark would jerk away after a few short moments and shoot Jack a warning glance.  

He didn’t think he could handle this much longer, so when Dark emerged from the shower late one night, thinking Jack was already asleep, Jack decided to take action. He saw the towel slung low on the demon’s hips, saw the faint line of hair trailing down underneath, saw the way his skin shone, and he itched to touch it all over, to taste it on his tongue, to consume him entirely. The towel dropped so Dark could slip on a pair of pajama pants, and Jack’s mouth went suddenly dry. The demon was slim but perfectly sculpted, his wings dripping slightly with water, and Jack watched as droplets slid down between his wings, down his back and onto his perfect ass that would have made Greek gods jealous. Jack slid his legs over the side of the bed, and, almost against his own will, padded over to Dark quietly. He moved to slide up behind him, but Dark’s voice stopped him.

“Don’t,” he said softly, turning around. Jack didn’t move. He’s not sure he could have with the demon standing completely exposed in front of him. Jack realized he had never seen the demon fully naked before, actually he’d never seen anyone fully naked in person. Dark moved to cover himself with his wings, but Jack stepped close to stop him.

“Please, Dark,” he said in a small, but commanding voice, and he looked the demon over from the top of his wet hair which hung over his black eyes, down to his lips which were slightly parted, down to his neck which showed him swallowing nervously, down to his muscled chest which was breathing heavily, down the trail of dark hair which ended at his half-hard cock, down to his feet which were shuffling nervously underneath him. “Fuck, you’re so beautiful,” Jack breathed out, enjoying the way Dark almost blushed underneath his gaze. Demons blushed, huh, who knew?

“I want you so fucking badly,” Jack said honestly, reaching out his marked palm toward the demon.

Dark shook his head, but Jack could see he was shaking slightly, he almost felt he was shaking too. Jack thought that maybe if he—maybe if their connection were strong enough—

He slid his marked hand down his own chest, dragging his fingernails hard against the skin underneath his shirt, hard enough to leave a mark. He watched as red lines appeared slowly across Dark’s chest in the same place he’d just scratched himself. The demon looked down and a smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.

“That’s interesting,” he said almost smugly, breathing heavily.

“Does it work the other way around?” Jack asked.

Dark shrugged and brought a finger to his lips, licking slowly across the length of it before sticking it in his mouth and sucking on it with an exaggerated moan. Jack rolled his eyes, as he watched the demon. He was getting hard, really hard. Suddenly Dark bit down on the finger and Jack let out an “ow!” The demon smirked cheekily.

Oh, so that’s how he wanted to play? Jack reached into his pajama bottoms as Dark watched his every move with impossibly black eyes. Jack wrapped a hand tightly around his cock, letting his fingers tease the tip. “Jesus, fuck,” Dark moaned, his cock twitching, and he moved to touch himself.

“No,” Jack said. It was a simple command, and one that Dark surprisingly followed obediently. He ran one shaky hand through his hair, and placed the other on the joint of his wings, leaning back against the wall and exposing himself further for Jack, the muscles in his stomach convulsing, sweat beginning to glow on his skin.

Jack swallowed. Maybe he could make the demon control himself, but he wasn’t sure if he could. With careful movements and never taking his eyes off Dark, he began to stroke himself. A surge of power rushed through him as he saw the demon’s body quivering as though he were being touched directly.

A desperate, almost pained moan escaped from Dark’s lips. “Fuck, Jack—baby, it’s not enough,” he said through clenched teeth as he struggled to keep his hands behind his head.  

“Aww, really?” Jack nearly cooed at him, stroking the head of his cock gently between his fingers. Dark’s knees gave out, and he started to slip down the wall but quickly regained his footing, keeping his hands behind him like a good boy. “This isn’t enough?”

Dark shook his head. “Fuck, just—I need—” He was trying to keep the words from tumbling out, Jack could tell.

“Tell me, Dark,” Jack said, slowing his movements to a teasing pace. “Tell me what you need.” He felt dark power thrumming in his veins as he waited for the demon to beg for him, beg to fuck him right here against that wall, beg to take his body like he’d taken his soul, taken his life.

“Fuck, I need—I need to get out of here,” Dark said suddenly, dropping his arms to his side and moving to put on a pair of pants.

“Like fuck you do,” Jack said, surging forward to pin the demon against the wall, bare forearm against his bare chest. Dark bucked up against him, trying to push him off, but Jack was growing stronger with each moment he touched the demon’s skin, and he held him tight against the wall.

“Get the fuck off me, Jack.” His eyes burned into Jack’s with an intensity he’d never seen before, in a way that mirrored his own. Rather than frightening Jack, it gave him a renewed energy, and he held on tighter. The demon seemed to growl low in his throat as he tried to jerk away from him.      

The mark on Jack’s palm was burning like acid and he pressed it to Dark’s neck to find relief. Immediately, he felt the drug he’d been craving seep into his system, and he pressed tighter, moaning at the instant fix it gave him. Dark had stilled, his breathing slowed, and as Jack pressed tightly against him, he felt the demon was even harder than he had been before. Fuck, he was enjoying this, and the thought made Jack smirk. Letting his arm fall from the demon’s chest, he tightened his grip and brought his other hand down to begin stroking Dark’s cock, already leaking at the tip.

“Fuck me,” Jack leaned forward to breathe in his ear.

Dark’s eyes were nearly rolled back in his head, and he was barely breathing, but he shook his head resolutely. Jack ran his thumb over the tip of his cock and Dark bucked up into him. He was now shaking violently and sweating profusely, but he didn’t try to remove Jack’s hand from his throat. “Fuck me,” Jack repeated, even quieter than before, biting down on the demon’s neck, and fuck, he’d forgotten how good he tasted.  

“I can’t,” and it was more a movement of lips than any sound that came from the demon’s lips.

Jack let go of his throat and then slowly his cock and stepped back. Dark doubled over and gasped for breath.

“No?” Jack asked, disbelieving. “You’re going to say no to me.” Even with demonic energy coursing through him he still felt the remnants of human emotion running through him: hurt, rejection, betrayal.

“Jack, please,” it was a question and a plea and a desperate cry for help all in one. “I can’t—”

“You know what, fuck you,” Jack said. “Actually, I can’t fuck you, so go fuck yourself.” He didn’t even care that he probably sounded like a pissy little shit right now, he needed to get out of here. He threw on a hoodie and walked outside. Dark didn’t try to follow him.

He didn’t have to walk far to get his bearings. He was in the heart of the city, close to a seedy bar that his dad used to frequent. He walked in. There were only four people in the bar: a waitress flirting with an older businessman, a bartender, and a twenty-something man sitting at the bar, hair sweaty and sticking to his face, dressed in torn jeans and a worn college sweatshirt. He looked wrecked, but he might have been good looking on a different day, in a different setting.

“Hey,” the bartended called out to Jack. “Get the fuck out of the bar, kid.”

Oh, yeah. Jack still only looked eighteen, even though he felt ancient most of the time. He didn’t know what possessed him, but he stepped closer to the bartender and put a hand over his as it wiped down the counter. As soon as his skin made contact, his mind was bombarded with images of—bad things. Really bad things.

He saw the bartender as a kid, putting a thumbtack on his teacher’s chair and blaming it on the shy kid in class. He saw him as a teenager, throwing eggs at the house of Old Man Pritchet, laughing with his friends as he fell down the stairs trying to chase them off. He saw him drilling a small hole into the bathroom wall so he could film the women who went inside. He saw him giving alcohol to a teenage girl to try to get her to come home with him. He saw him hit her when she refused—

He let go of the man’s hand suddenly, despising him with everything that was in him. All he could see when he looked at the man was the evil inside him, and he wanted to suck it all out of him so he could leave him an empty husk who could never hurt anyone again.

“Oy!” called the young man on the barstool, motioning toward Jack. “Put him on my tab, Roy. Come on, old man, I won’t tell if you won’t.” He gave Jack a wink and motioned for him to sit down beside him.

The bartender wrenched his hand away from Jack. It was shaking slightly, and as he looked at Jack, his eyes seemed lifeless and hollow. Jack wanted nothing more than to finish him off. He must have taken part of the man’s soul when he’d made contact with him, but he wanted more, he needed more, and if he could just reach out and touch him again—

“Hey, kid, you want a free drink or not?” the drunk man asked, and Jack stepped away from the bartender slowly. He sat beside the man and ordered a pint, knowing he’d never drink it. The smell alone made him queasy with horrible memories long past. The bartender set the beer in front of him robotically before retreating into the back room.

“You guys good?” asked the waitress absently as she led the older customer to the bathroom.

Jack nodded, and they left the two of them alone.

He felt suddenly his cock grow hard. Fuck you, Dark, he thought, knowing the demon was touching himself to torture Jack. He turned toward the man next to him, directing all his attention on him.

“You not gonna drink?” he asked Jack.

Jack shrugged, as he felt the darkness strumming through him, thick and heavy, and he needed some kind of release before he exploded. He brushed his fingers across the top of the man’s hand, and hummed when he felt the lighter aura of this man flow out of his body and into Jack’s. He saw how much he loved his parents, saw how Jack reminded him of his younger brother. Saw how much he wished that he lived closer to them. He saw how the man was just down on his luck right now. He’d graduated from college two years ago, and hadn’t been able to find a steady job, but he was trying. God, was he ever trying. He was such a * _good*_ person, and Jack wanted to take all that from him—

“Oh, hey, sorry man, I don’t swing that way,” he said, moving his hand with a nervous chuckle.

“You sure?” Jack asked with a smirk, touching his hand again. He searched deep down into his thoughts and found an old repressed memory of he and his buddy when they were fifteen, naked in a locker room. It had just been the two of them, and the other boy had surged forward to kiss him, and he had kissed back before he’d even realized what he was doing. That’s all they’d done, but it was enough to put the tiniest bit of doubt in his mind about his own sexuality, and that night he’d gone home and touched himself while thinking of his locker room encounter.

He saw the man swallow, eyes darting down to Jack’s lips. “I—” he started, and Jack leaned forward, his lips meeting with the older man’s before he could finish the sentence. Jack swallowed down a wave of revulsion as he tasted the alcohol on the man’s breath, but he pushed through it as he felt the glow of the man’s aura rush inside him, and it wasn’t as good as Dark’s, but fuck, it was still so good and so fucking _human_.

He felt, rather than saw, a tear start to stream down the man’s face as the good inside him made way to doubts and fears and every bad thing he’d ever thought and done in his life. Jack couldn’t get enough, even as a small voice inside him told him this was  _wrong_ ; he was human, not a demon. He moved to climb into the man’s lap, when he felt a pair of strong arms yank him off his chair, and he fell to the ground roughly.

“The fuck—” the man said, looking at Jack strangely. Jack scrambled to his feet, and looked up to see Mark standing over him, golden wings outstretched wide though it was clear the man on the barstool couldn’t see him. Jack was torn between the desire to throw himself into the angel’s arms and the desire to kick his ass for being the world’s worst cockblock.

“Come on,” Mark said coldly, helping Jack to his feet and dragging him toward the bathroom. The man at the bar shuddered slightly, shaking off the effects of the demon energy before returning to his drink.  

As they entered the bathroom, Jack heard the older customer grunting loudly as he fucked the waitress in one of the stalls. Mark reached a hand into the stall, sqeezing his eyes shut so he wouldn’t see anything he didn’t want to and touching the man’s arm.

The noise stopped suddenly, and Jack saw the man’s feet underneath the stall and he yanked up his pants. “What am I doing? I’m  _married_ ,” he said frantically, as he yanked the door open and rushed past Jack. The waitress pulled her dress down as she exited the stall. Mark ran a hand down her arm, and she stopped short. As she walked out of the bathroom, a swirl of emotions crossed her features all at once: first uncertainty, then fear, then a final sort of calmness that maybe everything would be alright.

Jack missed that feeling.  

“What has he done to you?” Mark asked softly, reaching for Jack with outstretched hands, placing them on either side of Jack’s face. He leaned into the angel’s touch, and felt darkness flow out of him as light seeped into his veins like a balm. He never wanted to leave him again, and he’d never felt more human, yet still, he felt Dark like he were touching him himself, and he almost moaned as he felt Dark close to coming.

Mark rolled his eyes and gestured down at Jack’s cock. “Is that you or Dark feeling that?” Jack wasn’t sure, so he just nodded. Mark kept one hand around the back of Jack’s head and stuck the other hand in his pants.

“What the fu--?” Jack began, but it was cut off when Mark started stroking him. It wasn’t exactly sexual—well, as much as your guardian angel jacking you off wasn’t sexual, but fuck, it was exactly what Jack needed, and it was only a minute later that he felt Dark come at the same moment he did.

Mark took his hand out of his pants and washed it off in the sink.

Jack cleared his throat awkwardly. “Um, thank you, I guess.”

Mark smiled at him. “That’s what guardian angels are for,” he said with a ridiculous wink, and Jack found himself smiling, actually smiling for the first time in what seemed centuries. It almost hurt his face. Mark turned back toward him, face suddenly serious, and Jack’s face fell.

“Why are you here, Mark?” he asked, knowing it was more than to just stop him from having a bad one-night’s stand.

Mark looked nervous and unsure for the first time. He shuffled his feet. “Jack, your request to give up your place in heaven for me was denied,” he said, knowing what this meant to Jack.

“What does that mean?” Jack asked slowly, feeling a single tear slip down his cheeks unbidden. He’d never felt more small and human in his life.

“I have to take you back to purgatory, Jack,” he said. “Neither of us have any choice.”

He felt his heart stop, and he felt an ache inside him that could only mean Dark’s had done the same.         

 

 ___________________________________________

They couldn’t take him. He wouldn’t go to purgatory and that was the end of it, Jack decided. Mark would take his place in heaven again because they wouldn’t have a choice but to give it to him.

“ _No_ ,” Jack said firmly, trying to keep the petulant child’s tone out of his voice. “I won’t go, Mark.”

Mark looked neither surprised nor moved by Jack’s declaration. “You don’t have a choice. No one ever does.”

“So you’re saying people can’t change their fate?” Jack asked. “Never?”

Mark shook his head. “We don’t know what our fate is, but we know that it can’t be altered. No one has ever changed their fate without severe consequences.”

“Then I’ll go where they can’t find me. Dark will take me back to hell and it’ll be fine and—”

“You think they won’t find you there?” For the first time, there was a hint of anger in Mark’s voice. “You can’t hide from them, Jack. This is your fate. The fates will find you just like they found Hercules of old, just like they found me—” His voice cracked slightly as he struggled to keep his composure. Jack thought about all Mark had been through for his sake. Falling from heaven, separation from Felix, life in purgatory. He wondered if he had lost faith in God.

“Mark, I—”

He waved a dismissive hand at Jack. “It’s fine. I don’t regret anything that happened because I know that it was my fate for it to happen,” he said, and Jack tried to believe him. “But know this, Jack. You can’t run or hide or escape. It will find you wherever you go, whatever you do.”

“What if I kill myself again?”

Mark sighed. “Then you will fall, and they will take you back again.”

“Then I’ll do it again,” Jack’s voice was straining, desperate and fragile. “And again, and again and—”

“And every time you do, you’ll lose a piece of your soul until you are left empty like a husk, and you will live out the rest of eternity like that with no hope of ever reaching heaven,” Mark said, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him roughly. “I cannot bear that thought, Jack. I spent eighteen years making sure you didn’t do anything to hurt yourself. Now, please don’t make me watch over you for the rest of time while you exist soulless and hollow. It would tear me apart.” The sincerity in his voice nearly broke Jack, and he lifted a hand to the angel’s cheek, feeling the light flow through him.

Mark looked down at him with the purest love that Jack had ever seen. It filled him completely. He leaned forward and his lips met with Mark’s. They were soft, so soft, unlike anything that he’d ever felt before. Mark slipped his fingers into Jack’s hair gently and deepened the kiss until it felt like they were one being spinning through all of time and space. Everything was good in the world. No one could ever hurt him again.

Just as suddenly as it began, the kiss ended. Mark leaned his forehead against Jack’s and he reached up to wipe away tears that Jack didn’t know he had shed.

“How long do I have?” he asked Mark softly.

“The wheels of heaven move slowly, and they don’t see time as humans do, so it’s impossible to say exactly how long. One day, they will come for you, and you’ll have no choice but to go with them at that moment.”

Jack nodded slowly. He had no choice. Those words summed up his life, so why shouldn’t they lead him in death, too? He thought about living out his days in purgatory, drinking the golden drink which made him forget, living in the white room with the red apple. Never feeling pain or hunger or sickness. It wouldn’t be so bad.

He felt his marked palm begin to tingle, to burn, and he remembered why he couldn’t go back to purgatory.

“I’m not even supposed to be here,” said Mark, releasing Jack’s shoulders. “I just thought you should be warned before they take you.”

Jack felt cold despite the burning in his hand. “Thank you,” he said woodenly.

Mark nodded, tilting Jack’s chin up until he met his eyes. “And promise me one thing, Jack.”

He nodded.

“When they come for you, don’t fight them. It will be better for you and for * _him*_ ,” he said, releasing his chin.

Jack nodded as the angel moved toward the door. “Mark,” Jack said, “I’m sorry. For everything.”

“I know, Jack,” he said with a sad smile. “Me too.”

Mark left quickly, and Jack followed soon after, the cool air from outside blessedly washing over him after being in the muggy air of the bar. He suddenly felt a hand grab onto his own and the burning in his palm instantly felt relief.

Dark pushed him against the brick wall outside the bar, and leaned into his neck, breathing deeply like an addict getting his first fix in months. “No,” he said, and Jack didn’t know to exactly what he was referring but he agreed. “You can’t. I won’t let them.”

Jack reached a hand to the demon’s forehead and pushed the sweaty hair away from his face. He leaned into the touch and closed his eyes. “Shhh,” Jack said soothingly. “It’ll be ok.” Impulsively, he leaned forward and touched his lips to the demons, barely a whisper of a kiss. As he felt the darkness begin to thrum through him, he deepened the kiss, melding his lips with the demon’s, enjoying the way they fit between his so perfectly. Dark tangled a hand through Jack’s hair, licking at his lower lip to beg entrance. Jack parted his lips, feeling the demon slip his tongue in, hot and desperate, like he was trying to consume him. Jack kissed back with equal fervor.

The darkness inside him was growing steadily, and he felt his soul starting to tug away from him, begging to escape back into the one to whom it belonged, but Jack couldn’t quite bring himself to care. Maybe if Dark took his soul, heaven wouldn’t want him anymore, and he could be one with the demon forever, existing with his aura forever on a higher plane than this fucking mortal body would allow--   

“Come on,” the demon said suddenly, pulling away from Jack, breathing heavily. He grabbed Jack’s hand and tugged him after him quickly, roughly.

“Where are we going, Dark?” he asked, jogging so he could keep up with him.

“Back to hell.”

Jack stopped, but Dark didn’t let go, and he jerked back against him in a sort of tug-of-war between them. “You know that won’t work, right? Hiding in hell won’t work,” Jack said, trying to pull away firmly. Dark held tight, and his eyes, dark and shiny, glassy and hollow in the moonlight, bore into Jack’s.

“It will work,” he said, leaning close to Jack, “or else I’ll burn down all of heaven to get you back.” The words should have been romantic, but they were possessive, harsh, full of desperation and need.

Jack shivered, allowing himself be pulled toward the edge of town, where they had come from hell just weeks earlier. God, it seemed like a lifetime ago. It was actually  _several_  lifetimes ago, he realized.      

They reached the field sooner than Jack would have expected, an open field lit by moonlight, and the unlikely portal to hell apparently. Dark stopped them in the middle and turned to Jack, putting his hands on either side of his face. Jack breathed into the contact, letting the darkness he’d been longing for seep into his pores. He noticed that Dark looked relieved, too, like he’s been in a desert for too long without water.

“You need to concentrate, ok?” he said, and Jack’s eyes snapped back to the demon’s. “Don’t look away from me. This is going to feel a little weird.”

Jack nodded, looking straight into the pools of darkness before him, getting lost in their depths. He had suddenly the sensation of falling, faster and faster, through darkness and redness but no light. And it burned him. God, it burned him like tongues of fire licking at his skin. Then they were surrounded by complete redness, and Jack felt something like hands trying to grab onto him, but they were sharper and hot like coals. One reached around his waist and wrenched him back. Dark grabbed at Jack but it was too late, and suddenly he was falling even faster than before and once he saw the ground below, he knew he would hit it with life-crushing force.

He saw a pair of dark wings out the corner of his eye and he dared to hope, but the face that turned toward him was not Dark’s. The creature drew closer to him and grabbed his arm just as he was about to hit the ground, lowering him down gently until his feet hit the ground safely. The demon flew down in front of him, and folded his arms across his chest. He looked friendly enough. Well, as friendly as a demon with blood red eyes, and dark coiling tattoos of gargoyles and monsters and other creepy things covering his entire bare chest and arms could look.

“You’re Jack,” he said, rather than asked. Jack nodded. “I’ve been dying to meet you for the longest time. Your story is legendary down here, you know? The boy who gave up a place in heaven for a demon. Touching, it really is.” He pressed a hand to his heart and fluttered his eyelashes. Jack shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “But the real question is,” he said, taking a hold of Jack’s hand and lifting his palm to reveal Dark’s marking underneath, “how you are here when you should be—” he pointed up and wiggled his fingers. “I got the papers saying you were transferring a few days ago, so what gives, du-u-de?” he said in a ridiculous accent.

Jack was silent a moment as the demon stared at him intently, waiting for a response like he had all the time in the world, a wide, creepy grin on his face. “Who are you?” Jack asked.

He laughed, clapping his hands and practically bouncing. “Oh, this is my favorite part of getting new people down here. Just watching their faces, I love it. I, my dear boy,” he paused for dramatic effect, and when he continued, his voice was booming and melodramatic, “am Lucifer, the angel of light, who was cast down from heaven by a God who just didn’t understand all the drama and angst I was going through at the time.” His voice turned conversational, more like a teenage girl than the father of lies, “And he thought I was trying to take his place when all I wanted was to be equal with him. And I was soooooo beautiful, and he was probably just jealous, so he sent me down here to take care of the ‘baddies,’” he said, picking at a loose feather on his wings. “But this ain’t a bad gig, so I can’t really complain.”

Jack didn’t know what he was supposed to say to the prince of darkness, so he stood awkwardly rubbing his arm.

“But where are my manners?” Lucifer said, before grabbing his hand and practically skipping down an empty road that led to who knew where. “You’re still mostly human, well, apart from what Dark’s already taken from your soul, so you must be hungry, right?”

Jack nodded, even though he didn’t really feel like eating. He just wanted to see Dark. To make sure he was alright. To touch him and fill the emptiness that was already beginning to form inside him.             

They didn’t walk far before he saw a small, rather cozy-looking, cottage on the side of the road. “Home, sweet home,” he said, opening the unlocked door to let Jack inside. The door opened up into a living room that was just as inviting as the outside. There were two mismatched, lumpy couches and an armchair in the room, and in the corner stood a fireplace that flickered with flames that never seemed to extinguish Jack almost laughed. A fireplace in hell seemed a bit excessive.     

“Have a seat,” he said, and left to what was presumably the kitchen. Jack sat down, looking at the coffee table which was strewn with ancient-looking parchments and wax seals. He saw one which looked familiar, and he picked it up, carefully looking over his shoulder to see Lucifer making a pot of tea, and dancing ridiculously in the kitchen. It was the paper he had signed for Felix stating that he was not responsible for his own suicide. There was a note at the bottom about his desire to give up his place in heaven for Mark. Over it, was a red stamped “DENIED.”

He scanned down the rest of the paper which gave instructions for Lucifer if Jack were to try to escape his fate. As he was about to finish reading, he looked up to see the fallen angel watching him closely. He set a cup of tea down in front of him, and took the papers from his hands with a “tsk, tsk” sound. “You shouldn’t snoop, Jack. It isn’t very—Christian—of you.”

Jack picked up the tea and breathed it in deeply. It smelled wonderful, and he took a deep sip, sighing happily despite himself. The devil smiled at him. He motioned for Jack to hand him his palm which Jack did, head feeling slightly fuzzy. Lucifer rubbed a finger over the marking on his hand, making little “hmmm” noises like a fortune teller. Jack giggled, “Tickles,” he said. He shook his head, trying to clear it, feeling suddenly very tired. He closed his eyes. Just for a moment, he told himself.   

_______________________________________

_Jack walked quickly across the playground, dress shirt coming undone from his new, black trousers. He itched all over, and his hair was stuck to his head in a stiff side part as he climbed up the ladder to reach the monkey bars. Maybe Dad wouldn’t notice that he’d slipped out in the middle of the reception. Maybe he would just let him be alone for a while before he had to go back inside and see all those people crying and trying to hug him again._

_He reached a hand to the bar above his head, intending to hoist himself on top of them, but he missed and as his hand slipped, he fell, hitting the back of his head hard against the gravel below. His head felt fuzzy, and as he tried to shake it, he swore he saw two shadowy figures leaning over him, one golden like sunlight, looking at him fondly, and the other dark like midnight with a furrowed brow and black eyes._

_“Don’t worry. He’ll be fine,” said the light._

_“I should have been there,” said the dark._

_“You can’t save him from every little scratch,” said the light, kindness lacing his voice. There was a silence as the dark moved his hand to press against Jack’s forehead. Jack felt a strange kind of tugging inside him that pulled him toward the creature, and he tried to lean forward into the touch, but the dark moved his hand away quickly._

_“I wish I could,” said the dark, standing up suddenly as if to put distance between himself and Jack._

_The light brushed a hand across the back of Jack’s head, and he felt instantly better. He smiled as the world came back into focus and the two beings disappeared. He sat up and saw his dad approaching him from the church doors, swaying from side to side just enough so that Jack could tell he’d been drinking._

_“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Jack,” he said, glancing over Jack’s now-dirty shirt and bleeding head. “Come on, you couldn’t keep out of trouble for one hour?” Jack moved to stand up, but he waved him away, plopping down beside him on the ground. “I can’t say I blame you though,” his dad said, pulling a bottle from his suit pocket. “I’d like to escape myself if I could. God, all these fucking people who think that they knew her like—” He cut himself off, taking a long gulp from the bottle. Already, Jack could smell the alcohol on his breath and it made him feel sick. His drinking had got real bad toward the end of it all, and it seemed to be worse the past few days since she died._

_“Dad, we can go back inside—”_

_He sighed, letting out a heavy breath and patting Jack’s knee. “You know what we should do?” he asked Jack._

_Jack shook his head._

_“We should tell all these people,” he gestured toward the church, “to go home. Just go home and mind their own fucking business. They think they knew her? They don’t know shite, Jack.”_

_Dad would never have sworn in front of Jack when Mom was alive. Jack remained silent. It was best to do so when his dad got like this._

_“Do you want that?” his dad asked him._

_Jack shrugged._

_His dad was silent a moment before taking another gulp, finishing off the bottle. “That’s what I’m gonna do,” he said resolutely. “I’m gonna tell them.” He stood shakily to his feet, and reached out a hand for Jack._

_“Can I stay out here for a couple more minutes?” Jack asked quietly. He’d expected his dad to say no or shout, but he just stilled for a moment, and perhaps in a fit of clarity, he nodded and said, “You stay out here for as long as you need, ok, son?” He walked back inside, his feet clumsy and unsure._

_It was only minutes before the yelling started between his grandma and his dad. He saw guests hurriedly leaving the church, getting into their cars with whispers and sidelong glances. Jack started to scratch at his arm, harder and harder until it bled, when suddenly the noise became muffled, like someone had their hands over his ears, and he felt that familiar, almost comforting, tug inside him for a brief moment before the hands were torn away, and he heard the shouting again. Shouting turned into screaming, screaming for help, for relief, for escape—_

__________________________________

A scream tore through Jack’s body as he clutched his palm to his chest. It burned like fire, like acid, like a thousand needles through his skin and into his soul. And oh, God, why wouldn’t it stop? He had fallen off the couch, curled into a fetal position on the ground. The devil stood above him, smiling like he was very pleased with himself. Jack was faintly aware of the front door opening and a winged figure leaning down next to him.

He saw the dark one from his memory, looking now ashen face and sweating, kneeling next to him. Jack reached his hand up to the demon’s cheek, feeling instant relief from the burning pain that coursed through him.

“What the fuck did you do?” Dark asked Lucifer as Jack struggled to regain his senses.

“I was just doing a little experiment, and it wo-orked,” he said in a sing-song voice. “You came running, because you felt what he felt. You saw what he saw. Your connection goes deeper than just a simple demon/human connection, you know? Loads of humans have those, but you two--it’s interesting. I  _like_  it.” He smiled smugly, but Dark sent him a murderous glare.

“I wonder how long it’d take for you to die if I sent Jackaboy to purgatory right now,” he said, addressing Dark. “Because I’m quite certain he could live without you, however miserably, but you—you would surely die.”

Jack moved his hand down from the demon’s cheek to cup the back of his neck, feeling his pulse throbbing in his veins hotly, reminding himself that he was alive, that they both were. He couldn’t imagine a world where they were separated. As sick and twisted as their relationship might be, without the other, they were nothing.

“Are you going to send him away?” Dark asked, not taking his eyes off Jack.

The devil considered for a moment before answering. “No, I don’t think I will. You two are way too much fun, but right now, I’m bored with you, so go.”

He picked up Jack’s half-drunk tea cup and took it to the kitchen. Dark reached an arm down to help Jack up. It was a strangely familiar gesture, and he took his hand, never wanting to let go. As long as he never let go, he’d be complete and whole forever.

The darkness that flowed through his veins didn’t feel as overwhelming as it had on earth. Maybe because here in hell all was darkness. Or maybe because with each moment he touched Dark, his soul became more and more one with his. His aura became Dark’s, and Dark’s his. He wished that one day he would be consumed entirely so they would become one person, never separate, whole, powerful, and perfect.  


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Right underneath your skin, right underneath my fingertips. I can feel it.” 
> 
> “F-feel what?” Jack asked as Dark’s hands trailed down even lower to the top of Jack’s hips.
> 
> He hummed into Jack’s neck, darting a tongue out as if to taste him. “Your fucking soul, baby,”

CHAPTER 11

After their meeting with the devil, Dark took Jack back to his home (mansion? lair? whatever the fuck it was) and dropped Jack in front of the massive front door, letting his wings fold behind him as they entered the open area of the house.

“What the fuck was all that about?” Jack said, walking to Dark’s semblance of a kitchen. There was an ancient looking French-press, and he wondered why the demon even had one. He suppressed a wave of jealousy that rose up in his throat like bile. What if he’d brought other humans here before? Dumb fucks just like him who’d gotten tangled up in the messy business of heaven and hell. What if Dark had fucked them right in this kitchen before taking their souls from their bodies? What if he’d let them touch him, let them soak up his darkness while he took their light from them?

“I got it for you, the coffee thing,” Dark said, and Jack turned his head to see him leaning against the doorframe, arms folded across his chest, his black eyes staring at Jack intently.

“Oh,” was all Jack said as he released the countertop edge he hadn’t realized he’d been clenching.

“When you started drinking coffee, I got this thing on earth and tried to drink it, so maybe you’d think I was more human later on,” he laughed, and for once it seemed genuine. “It tasted so fucking awful. I spit it out right away and never tried it again, but I kept it anyway. Just in case you’d ever want some.”

Jack cleared his throat. Something close to human emotion had edged the demon’s voice and it both concerned and touched Jack. Dark moved away from the door frame and stepped into the kitchen, walking up close to Jack so they were almost chest to chest, Jack pushed up against the counter. Dark leaned forward as if to kiss him, but instead reached above Jack to pull a bag of coffee grounds from the cupboard above his head.

“But I know how you like it,” Dark said, eyes darting to Jack’s lips even as he opened the coffee, the rich smell permeating the air, “the coffee, I mean. Strong with just a dash of cream and sugar. Sometimes I would make it for you in the mornings so it looked like your dad made the effort.”

At the mention of his dad, Jack felt something tug at his heart, not sadness or homesickness, but just the feeling that he  _should_  be sad, homesick, should feel something. But he felt nothing, nothing apart from Dark. And he knew he should want to feel human emotion the way he once did, but all he wanted was to know Dark completely, to feel every beat of his heart, to feel every hunger he felt, to feel every pain every pleasure that he felt.

Dark moved away from Jack to pour coffee grounds into the bottom of the press. Jack felt the absence of his body against his, and even though the demon was mere feet away, his tattooed palm burned to touch Dark’s skin, to consume him entirely. He swallowed heavily, forcing himself to stay where he was, keep himself from pushing Dark against the wall and fucking him right there. He wanted to take from the demon all the darkness Jack’s skin craved, giving himself to the demon, body and soul until there was nothing human left of himself.

He shivered and looked down at his hands to see his veins had again turned black. He knew that if he looked in the mirror, his eyes would be pools of black, a twisted mirror of Dark’s eyes. He wondered if there was anything human about him at all. He thought about how good it would feel to have a fully human soul in him right now. God, that would be so fucking good. Maybe he could convince Dark to let him go back to earth to take--

Dark slammed the teakettle down hard on the hot stove. “Jack, stop,” he said firmly, looking at him with eyes so dark Jack could see his own reflection in them. “I know what you’re thinking but I can’t—”

“I want you to fuck me,” Jack said simply.

“What?” Dark leaned against the counter. Jack could practically see the darkness thrumming through his veins.

“You fucking heard me, Dark.”

His body coiled and tensed. “Jack—fuck, you know I want to, it’s just that—”

“It’s just nothing. You’re just a stubborn asshole who won’t admit that my soul is yours already so why can’t you please just fucking take it from me?” Jack stepped forward to crowd Dark against the counter. He reached his marked hand to Dark’s neck, nearly moaning at the wave of heat that ran through him at the contact. He touched the joint where Dark’s wing met his back, knowing it was most sensitive to the demon. Dark hissed and flashed his black eyes toward Jack.

“Stop it.” He was radiating heat and energy like a fire. Jack wanted to climb inside it and never leave.

“Tell me this isn’t exactly what you want and I’ll stop,” Jack said, knowing full well that the demon did want this even if he wouldn’t let himself give into his urges. Jack ran his other hand down the demon’s chest, burning hot and sheening with sweat. His eyes never left Dark’s as he reached the waistband of his pants, slung low on his hips.

“Stop it,” Dark repeated, eyes hard.

Jack looked him directly in the eye before uttering a determined, “No.”

Dark glared at him as Jack unfastened the top button of his jeans, sliding the zipper down slowly. Jack smirked as he slid a hand into the demon’s boxers, feeling that he was already hard and ready for him.

“Fuck off, Jack,” Dark said. An evil glint appeared in his eyes for a brief moment before he deliberately reached his hand behind him and put it directly on the hot stove.

“Fucking fuck!” Jack exclaimed, wrenching his hand away from Dark’s skin and clutching it to his chest. It burned like he was the one who’d just put his hand on the fire. His eyes shot daggers at Dark, who didn’t even look remotely sorry for what he’d done. Fire and heat must not affect demons, that fucker.      

“You know what, fuck this,” he said, using his injured hand to shove Dark against the counter. Dark let out an ‘omph’ and looked as though he was about to shove back when Jack dropped to his knees in front of the demon, pulling down his pants in one quick motion, daring Dark to try to stop him. Dark was already hard and leaking as Jack put his lips to the tip, not sucking yet but hovering over it, letting his breath tickle the sensitive skin. Dark was shaking slightly as he opened his mouth as if in protest. “Don’t even bother telling me to stop,” Jack said, looking up at the demon, “because I won’t.”

He didn’t wait for a response before he wrapped his lips around the head, instantly feeling dizzy with the darkness rushing through him, strong and powerful, more so than it’d ever been. It threatened to consume Jack entirely, and he would let it in a heartbeat.

He’d only sucked cock once before in his life, some guy in high school who thought he was cute. But it’d been weird because he didn’t know what to do, where to lick, where to touch or stroke, and when the guy came warm and gross down his throat, Jack had sputtered and gagged. Jack didn’t even get hard off it, and the guy didn’t offer to return the favor, buttoning up his pants with a “thanks, man, see you around” tossed over his shoulder.

But with Dark, it was different--of course it was, everything about their relationship was different. He could feel every fucking sensation going through the demon’s body. He liked it when Jack squeezed almost too tightly at the base of his cock while keeping the tip unmoving in his mouth, the weight of it resting on his tongue. He liked when Jack ran his thumb on the underside of the base right above his balls. And he really liked when Jack stroked him with his marked palm, the one that bore his stamp of ownership. It was when he touched Dark with this hand that he felt everything Dark was feeling most acutely, felt like he and the demon were almost one entity, like he could melt into him, become a part of him.

And he wanted to fuck Jack, of that he was sure. He felt it in the way he tried to hold back from coming too quickly, in the way he nearly bucked into him every time Jack took him all the way down his throat.

“Jack, stop fucking thinking about it,” Dark moaned breathlessly above him. Jack had been so focused on what the demon was feeling that he hadn’t looked at him yet. But now that he did, he stared because fuck, his face was beautiful, practically glowing from the lighter aura he’d taken from Jack. His lips were parted, his mouth hung open obscenely, and his eyes, black and bright like obsidian, stared directly at Jack like no force of heaven or hell could make him look away.

“You don’t even realize how fucking beautiful you are,” and Jack was surprised that it was Dark who spoke the words. The demon reached a hand down to run through Jack’s tangled hair. Jack leaned into the touch. “Not just by earth’s standard which has its own fucked up idea of beauty, but, fuck, Jack, you’d turn heads in heaven.”

If Jack were feeling more human, he would have blushed, maybe tried to argue or disagree, but with all the darkness thrumming inside him, he felt no human emotion, nothing but want and desire. He kissed the inside of Dark’s tanned thigh, the skin inhumanly warm, and Jack wanted to taste every inch of it. He slid his lips back to Dark’s cock, kissing the base of it, licking at the sensitive skin underneath.

Dark was sweaty and shaking above him. Jack stood up to meet the demon’s eyes level. He looked afraid. Afraid of what? Jack tried to read Dark but came up empty. The demon seemed to know what he was thinking as he put his hands on either side of Jack’s face. Jack felt that familiar tug as the lightness left his being replaced by the darkness that his whole being craved.

“If we go through with this, you could lose everything,” Dark said.

“You are my everything,” Jack whispered, and it wasn’t romantic or sweet or loving. It was a statement of resignation, and as soon as it was spoken, he knew it was true. He had nothing left besides this demon who was incapable of goodness and love, and yet, he was all Jack wanted. “Please.” Jack didn’t know what he was asking for, maybe redemption or justification or maybe just a quick fuck; he didn’t know and he didn’t care as long as the answer was ‘yes’.

Dark leaned forward, lifting his face slightly until his lips met Jack’s, soft and warm and pliable. Dark deepened the kiss, licking Jack’s lower lip until the Irishman parted his lips to let him in. He tasted like fire and smoke, and he couldn’t get enough. He kissed his jawline, dragging his lips down to his neck where suddenly kissing wasn’t enough, and he bit down on the crook of his neck. Jack let out a deep moan that made Dark buck his hips toward him.

“Not here,” Dark said, breathlessly tearing himself away and grabbing Jack’s hand. He walked them both up the staircase, stopping halfway up to pin Jack against the wall and pull his shirt over his head. He buried his head in Jack neck, running his hands down Jack’s chest in a nearly desperate way. “Right underneath your skin, right underneath my fingertips. I can feel it.”  

“F-feel what?” Jack asked as Dark’s hands trailed down even lower to the top of Jack’s hips.

He hummed into Jack’s neck, darting a tongue out as if to taste him. “Your fucking soul, baby,” he was smiling, Jack could feel it against his skin, feel his teeth dragging across his pulse point. “It’s so close to the surface, I could take it now, and you wouldn’t fight me, would you?”

And Jack could feel it, the way his soul was trying to escape his body. It craved release to give room for all the darkness coursing through him. He didn’t need his soul anymore. Why would he? He concentrated on trying to push it out of his body, give it to Dark.

Dark moved away from Jack quickly as if he were afraid of him. “Not yet,” he said, his voice sounding strained. “If you give it to me, I want you to be lucid.”

“I am lucid,” Jack protested, but he wasn’t and he knew it. He felt drunk, felt he was going mad, felt entirely inhuman. He’d never felt better.

Dark gave him a disbelieving look and led him the rest of the way upstairs until they reached his room. Jack vaguely recognized it with the big four posted bed, the guitar propped in the corner, the huge mirror hanging above the dresser. He caught sight of himself and instantly wished he hadn’t.

His eyes were nearly black like Dark’s, and every vein in his body looked like black tattoos running across his neck and body. His hair glowed florescent and he seemed to be radiating something hot and dark like heat coming up off asphalt. Dark walked up behind him, his naked body pressed against Jack’s back, his wings fully outstretched. He slowly wrapped one arm around Jack’s waist pulling him as close as these restrictive corporeal bodies would allow. His other hand wrapped loosely around Jack’s neck, and everywhere he touched the veins pulsed and strained against his skin.

“I fucking warned you,” Dark said before wrapping his hand around Jack’s neck, turning him back toward him, and kissing him harshly, almost like a punishment. Jack moaned into his mouth, encouraging the demon as he bit down on Jack’s lip hard enough to draw blood. Dark drew back just enough so he could lick it clean, and he smiled like he’d never tasted anything better.

Jack moved toward the bed, but Dark tugged him back. “I want to watch you,” he said, bending Jack over the edge of the dresser so they both could see their reflections in the mirror. They were both studies in contrast, Dark especially so. All black eyes, black wings, tanned skin, and red lips. Jack tugged his pants off, swatting Dark’s hand away as he tried to grab onto his cock.

“If you touch me, I’ll come,” Jack said as Dark reached his index finger up to Jack’s lips. He opened his mouth and wrapped it around the demon’s finger, obediently sucking on it, rolling his tongue around the length and licking at the saltiness between his fingers. He added a second and Jack moaned around them. Jack thought he could probably come from just this, but he forced himself to take deep breaths.

Dark trailed his fingers down Jack’s back, their wetness leaving a trail, stopping at his entrance. If it were any other person, Jack would have wanted him to ask for permission, asked them to tell him if he was doing this right, if it felt good. But this was Dark, and he would know exactly what he was feeling. Dark tentatively pressed a finger inside him. It was tight, but he moved his finger around, getting used to the feeling—

“Dark, fuck, stop thinking about it and just do it already,” Jack moaned. Dark glared at him and pushed down on his back so his chest was pressed against the dresser, Dark’s wings splayed out behind them like a curtain. Dark slid a second finger into him and began to pump them back and forth. Jack pushed back against his fingers, but it wasn’t enough, and when every fiber of Jack’s being begged for more, Dark added a third, and he fucking  _felt_  how good it made Dark feel to stretch him open like that.

“I’m ready, I’ve  _been_  fucking ready, just please,” Jack pleaded.

His skin burned like fire all over, and as he looked at himself in the mirror, he saw nothing familiar, nothing human in the face that looked back at him. Dark removed his fingers from inside him slowly, feeling the drag of them as they came out. He ran his hand up Jack’s back and fisted them into Jack’s hair, pulling back on the strands roughly until he met his eyes in the mirror.

He looked desperate and wrecked, sweat pouring down his forehead, lips wet and swollen. His cock hung hard and leaking below him, looking just seconds from coming. Jack could relate. He reached behind him and guided Dark inside him, biting his lip as he felt Dark’s need and desperation to have him.

Jack’s face went slack as soon as Dark entered him, but his eyes never left the demon even as Jack moaned when Dark pushed all the way inside him. “Fuck,  _fuck_ ,” he panted as Dark found a rhythm. And Jack could tell that the fucker liked the way Jack was moaning, low and filthy every time he pushed into him.

“Fucking harder,” Jack moaned, pushing back against Dark harshly. He tangled a hand into Jack’s hair, pulling it back sharply, feeling the darkness consume him entirely. He wanted to mark Dark the way he’d marked him on his palm, in his veins, in his fucking soul. With one hand he raked his short fingernails down the line of skin on his chest between his shoulderblades nearly breaking the skin, knowing that part of the demon was sensitive, knowing it’d hurt him. He looked up to see red scratches appear down Dark’s chest. The demon nearly growled.

Jack just moaned and bucked back against Dark who released Jack’s neck and wrapped his hand around his cock. With three pumps Jack was coming hard over the demon’s hand, tightening around Dark as his body spasmed and clenched. Dark was close; Jack could feel it. The demon pulled out quickly, and Jack dropped to his knees like he knew exactly what Dark wanted. He  _did_  know, Jack reminded himself. Jack wrapped his hand around Dark’s cock and began stroking, his mouth open and ready.

“I want to taste you so fucking bad,” he said, surprising how it sounded less dirty and more like a drug addict, desperate for a hit.

Dark came, harder than he ever had before and backed up until the back of his knees hit the bed, forcefully sitting him down on the edge.         

It was all just too much at once, and Jack still felt like something inside him longed to be released from his body, like it shouldn’t be a part of him anymore. He sat next to Dark, both bodies naked, but Jack didn’t feel exposed somehow. They’d just fucked but still Jack didn’t feel at one with the demon, not entirely. The only thing between them was this body of skin and bones and decay and Jack wished to be rid of it, to escape it forever. It’d be best that way.

“Sleep, baby, don’t think about this tonight,” Dark said quietly, spreading his wings out and putting his hand to Jack’s chest to lower him down onto their feathery softness. “I won’t touch you tonight so that in the morning you’ll be able to think more clearly. The darkness should be partially worn off by then.”

But Jack didn’t  _want_  the darkness to wear off. He wanted more of it, but there was no more room inside him. He felt Dark trying to force sleep onto him, projecting his own tiredness, and Jack allowed himself to succumb to it. In the morning, he’d deal with all this. In the morning he’d--   

_______________________________________

Jack heard the door open, and he opened his eyes groggily. As his eyes adjusted, he realized it was light in the room, really light, like the sun was outside the window, but there were no windows and there was no sun in hell. “What the fu--”

“Good morning, Mr. McLoughlin,” said a cheery voice, carrying a tray with a single glass on it and a red apple. The man, dressed in white hospital scrubs set the tray down next to Jack.

“No, no, no,” Jack chanted, scrambling off the huge bed and falling gracelessly to the floor. Everything was wrong, this was wrong. He screamed for help, but the orderly just approached him with an unnerving calmness asking him if he was going to cause any trouble today.

Jack tried to scoot away on the floor so he couldn’t touch him again, so they couldn’t force him to drink any more of that golden liquid that somehow made him forget the pain but left him feeling hollow. Hollow of what? He was fine, he was happy here, right? There was nothing missing from his life, nothing at all.

He shook his head and images of darkness came to the surface. He fought to keep them there, to grab hold of them. The memories slipped away from his mind like sand between his fingers.

The orderly was putting the cup to his lips, and Jack drank. He was fine, everything was fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter was a bit short, but I promise I'll make up for it in the next one. 
> 
> Next chapter: Mark tries to make Jack forget about the demon.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween! This chapter sees the emergence of Anti-Jack and is told from Mark's POV since Jack is... not himself.

CHAPTER 14

 

            Mark was accustomed to watching over fucked up people. He’d had ten charges in the last 800 years and each of them had been challenging in their own ways. Some of them had died young—not his fault, he was quick to point out—and some of them, he’d seen live to nearly a hundred years old—those had been the hardest to part from, and he’d taken their souls to heaven in their sleep. He’d grown rather attached to each of them in their own ways, but he’d always been able to move on after he’d turned them over to heaven.

But Jack. Fuck. He couldn’t seem to get him out of his head or out of his hands.

            He thought about the way Jack had offered to give up his place in heaven for him. He couldn’t imagine any of his other former charges doing that for him, even after he’d worked their whole lives to protect their sorry asses. Jack was different. He was so _good_ and pure, and, fuck, his soul was something that even an ancient being like Mark had never seen before and couldn’t imagine seeing again. It was no wonder Dark wanted to keep him for himself. Mark had thought the same thing more than once, but as an angel whose job is was to protect Jack, he knew he couldn’t. Or rather, shouldn’t.

            And yet, he couldn’t seem to be rid of the kid. Here he was, back in purgatory, waiting to be sent to heaven. When the time came, that would be Mark’s job, like it was always supposed to be. Jack was never meant for hell, and yet—as Mark sat in the chair opposite of Jack’s bed, watching Jack sleep fitfully—he wondered if maybe that’s exactly where he should be.

            The Irishman looked hardly human. His skin, always pale, had turned even paler, making the black veins in his arms and neck stand out all the more inhumanly. His eyes, the few times he’d opened them, were black, and as Jack looked him in the eye, Mark could see more demon than anything else in him. But Jack still had his soul, of that Mark was certain. He could feel it growing stronger with each day that passed away from Dark.

            Jack gave a little shudder as if in a nightmare. Mark got up to sit next to him on the bed, placing his hand on Jack’s forehead to calm him. He focused all his energy into Jack, letting light seep through him to pass on to Jack. As he did, he felt some of the darkness leave Jack. It made Mark shudder as he felt what Jack felt: withdrawal, desperation, lust for something that Mark couldn’t give him.

            Jack calmed and then stilled as his eyes fluttered open. Mark breathed a sigh of relief to see that they were back to their usual blue color.  It was _his_ Jack, well, almost—his hair was still that acidic shade of green and his veins were black though they began fading the longer Mark touched him. But this was almost his Jack, the one he’d loved and cared for since birth. Jack cocked his head curiously and looked at Mark, who was shirtless, his wings spread out behind his back, their nine-foot span nearly touching both ends of the room. Mark quickly moved to close his wings to appear less intimidating to Jack, but the Irishman shook his head.

            “Don’t,” he said, his voice hoarse and unnaturally low. He reached up to touch the edges of Mark’s wings gently.

            “How are you feeling?” Mark asked.

            Jack gave the angel a crooked, almost goofy grin, a glimmer of his former self peeking through. “You already know that, don’t you? You know everything about me.”

            Mark shrugged, but Jack was right. He did know exactly how Jack was feeling, and all he wanted to do was make him better, the way he used to when he was younger.

            “What happened? I’m not in heaven,” Jack said, matter-of-factly.

            “No, you’re back in purgatory until the paperwork comes through to send you back.”

            “Paperwork? Yeah fucking right.” Jack looked at Mark skeptically.

            Mark smirked. This kid was always too smart for his own damn good.

            “Why am I really here?”

Mark considered protecting him from the truth, but there was no point. Not anymore. “They’re keeping you here because they want to make sure you’re as human as possible before they put you in front of the judgment seat.”

            Jack swallowed nervously, as he should have. Standing there in front of the great judge, nothing was hidden, and his soul would be bared and exposed for anyone to see.

            “How long will that take? To make me fully human?” Jack scooted closer to the angel and touched the edges of his wings. In response, Mark, almost subconsciously, moved so that he was sitting next to Jack, his wings wrapped around them both until they were in a sort of cocoon. It felt like they could be the only two beings in the universe.

Mark almost wished that were true.

“You know how long, Jack,” he said in almost a whisper.

Jack looked at Mark intensely with eyes that grew darker until they were nearly black. “Until Dark dies.” It wasn’t a question. Mark looked away from Jack’s probing stare.

“I’m so sorry, Jack. I’d save him if I could.”

“That’s such bullshit,” Jack said and moved so quickly that Mark didn’t have time to react before Jack had his hands around his throat. Mark felt light being sucked out of him, and it surprised him. He had always _given_ Jack his light in moments when the Irishman had needed it, but this was the first time it was being _taken_ from him. Forcibly. By the very human that Mark cared for most.

Mark knew he could probably throw Jack off him: he was only human after all. But he could see in Jack’s eyes that he was desperate, and this wasn’t him. It wasn’t Jack and it wasn’t a demon. It was just a lost soul in need of help.

Mark leaned forward to give Jack better access to his neck. Jack faltered, his eyes gaining some of his humanity again. Mark felt himself begin to grow faint as Jack drained the life from him. His eyes began to roll back. Just as he felt consciousness begin to slip away from him, Jack let go abruptly, stumbling backward onto the floor. Mark gasped for breath and coughed violently. He looked over at Jack who was staring wide-eyed and completely human again apart from the tattoo on his hand, the one that Dark had given him from birth.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t know where that came from. I’m a good person. Fuck, maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m not even a person anymore. I don’t feel like myself.” His eyes were brimming with tears. Mark scooted off the bed and sat in front of Jack on the floor. “Who am I, Mark? You know me better than I know myself. Please, just tell me who I am.” He was sobbing and scratching his arm like he always did when on the verge of a panic attack.

Mark leaned forward and took Jack’s face between his hands. “You’re Sean. _My_ Sean. And I—I love you.” Mark wasn’t surprised that he meant the words. He loved this stupid kid more than he’d ever loved any of his other charges, maybe more than he’d ever loved anyone else.

Jack bit his lip and nodded as Mark wiped the tears off his cheeks, willing some of his light to calm Jack.

“Tell me everything is going to be ok, Mark.”

“You’re going to be okay, baby. I promise. I’m never going to let you go again until I get you to heaven and then you can see your mom and your dad, and she’s going to be so happy to see how amazing you are, Sean.”

He nodded and stopped scratching his arm. Mark put his hand on it to heal the angry, red scratches that had been left behind.

“What if I’m just dreaming all of this?” Jack asked.

Mark snorted. “I wish you were. This whole thing is so fucked.”

“You’re saying that? Aren’t you like a thousand years old? Shouldn’t you be used to this?”

Mark pushed him playfully. “Shut up, I’m 812 years old, thank you very much. And I look fucking great for my age.” He flexed his arm to make his point. Jack cocked his eyebrow, and Mark felt him experience physical attraction which satisfied Mark to no end.

Mark smiled, the first Jack had seen in so long. He started to smile too, and soon both started laughing like maniacs about nothing. Jack clutched his side and fell onto his back. Mark joined him and felt at complete peace when Jack sat up to give his wings room to spread out before leaning back down, fitting himself against Mark’s side. Mark wrapped his arm around Jack, his wing automatically curling to brush against Jack’s back. It felt so natural and right that Mark almost forgot that he was still projecting light onto Jack. He didn’t want to stop though. What if Jack began thinking of Dark and what if the withdrawals returned? He’d lose Jack. But then again, Jack wasn’t his to begin with. Dark had made sure of that when he’d marked him for himself.

Suddenly, he felt a shiver run through him, and he looked up to see Jack tentatively running his fingers along Mark’s shoulders, gently touching the skin that connected his wings to his back. It was the place angels were the most sensitive, and Mark responsively nuzzled his face closer to Jack, breathing in the scent that was so familiar to him. He reached his fingers up to play with Jack’s hair which was back to its plain brown. His eyes were the startling blue they’d always been and the scruff on his face was several weeks grown in. His aura, all goodness and kindness, shone in every cell of his body, and as Mark lay this close to him he could practically see his soul. He looked so fucking human, and he was pretty sure he’d never seen anything so beautiful.

The door opened abruptly. Jack startled up, standing to his feet in an instant, while Mark rolled his eyes and took his time standing to his feet, looking lazily at the door. He knew who it was. His boss always had the best timing.

“Mr. McLoughlin, I see you are awake and looking much more yourself!” Felix said, bursting into the room like he owned the place. Well, he sort of did anyway.

Felix was like the CEO, and Mark was, in the scheme of things, basically just a paper boy. He was one of the youngest angels, and he knew that he had fucked up with Jack, letting a demon basically drag him to hell, which was the very thing guardian angels were supposed to protect their charges from.

He really was trying his best, but Dark always made things more complicated.

Jack was glaring at Felix and as Mark looked closely at him, he noticed the veins in his neck beginning to grow black again. He quickly reached over and touched the back of Jack’s neck, imbuing him with light. The darkness receded and Jack took a shaky breath.

“He’s doing much better,” Mark said, probably too loudly. “I think he should be almost ready.”

Jack’s head whipped toward Mark, panicked. Mark shook his head slightly to indicate that everything was fine.

“Oh, splendid,” Felix said, sounding bored. “Then we can begin the process.”

“What process?” Jack said, and Mark felt dark energy thrumming through Jack. He held his hand and willed him to stay calm.

“Removing all traces of demon from you, of course. You can’t get into heaven with Mark touching you like he is now, trying to pretend like he isn’t giving you his light.” Felix glanced over at Mark, his expression annoyingly all-knowing.

Jack looked at Mark curiously as he let go of his hand. There was no point anyway. He couldn’t keep anything from Felix and Jack couldn’t keep anything from Mark.

“What does that mean—removing all demon from me mean?” Jack looked at his palm.

Felix seemed to be considering how much to tell Jack. To be honest, Mark didn’t even know what Felix would say. In his lifetime, he had never encountered a situation like this, but Felix was much more ancient—he’d been around when Lucifer fell from heaven—so he would know.

 “It means splitting your soul in two,” Felix said simply.

“Like fucking Voldemort??” Jack said indignantly and Mark forced back a laugh.

Felix didn’t seem to understand the reference. He looked at his wristwatch, a device that Mark knew did much more than tell time. No one knew exactly what it did, but there were rumors that it kept track of all of humanity and held all the secrets of the universe and time itself. But knowing Felix, it was just as likely that it was a simple watch made on earth that he thought looked cool.

“You will become two parts, Sean. Let me think, what is a concept that you will understand? Think of it like ‘good’ and ‘bad’,“ Felix said, using dramatic air quotes. Jack seemed annoyed at Felix’s patronizing tone. Mark could relate. “Your ‘good’ half will go to heaven, and we will cast the part of you that is tainted by demons into hell. Or at least that’s how it should work. We’ve run into some trouble in the past…” Felix trailed off distractedly.

“What the fuck kind of trouble?” Jack’s eyes were turning black again. Mark itched to touch him and make everything better.

Felix waved his hand dismissively. “Never you mind, Mr. McLoughlin. I’m sure everything will be fine. Mark here will take very good care of you, won’t he?” Mark felt Felix enter his mind to read his intentions, a tool that Felix did not use often on him. It felt invasive and made Mark feel sick to his stomach. Felix smirked as he left his mind. Mark leaned heavily against the wall as if he had just sprinted and was out of breath. “Yes, he will, Mr. McLoughlin. Mark feels a very _personal_ connection with you that will ensure he will not let you down again.”

Mark had the wherewithal to glare at Felix only after he’d already started to leave the room. Once he had gone, Jack sat on the bed, staring at Mark for a long moment. Mark met his eyes to see that they were almost entirely black again, and yet, strangely, Mark could still feel human emotion coursing through Jack. It was such a strange juxtaposition that Mark couldn’t look away.

“The FUCK are you looking at?” Jack’s voice was not Jack’s at all, but a deep inhuman rumble that Mark felt as much as he heard. It startled him but he was not afraid. He had met with much more frightening things in his life and furthermore, he could still sense Jack’s humanity underneath the surface of his skin.

Jack stood up and began to pace in front of the bed. He looked like an addict desperate for his next hit. He stopped in front of Mark and leaned his forehead against the angel’s. Mark’s heart started beating faster in time with Jack’s. He had the sudden urge to kiss Jack but could feel that he was consumed only by thoughts of Dark. Mark didn’t want to feel hurt by the rejection, but he did nonetheless.

“You don’t need him, Jack, trust me,” Mark whispered and reached his hand around the back of Jack’s neck to pour light into him. Jack leaned into the touch for just a moment before jerking away.

“You’re just as bad as he is, Mark. Fuck you.”

Mark felt Jack’s anger and hurt like it was his own. “I’m nothing like him. I want to help you, and he just wants to hurt you.”

 “Then _help_ me,” he said, his eyes pleading.

“By giving you to Dark? I can’t do that.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

“Both,” Mark said resolutely. He knew what Jack was feeling, but he would be damned both literally and figuratively if he gave Jack up to the demon.

Jack sat down on the bed again, feeling resigned. He was shaking slightly from the withdrawal.

“Can I at least see him? Just one more time?”

“Just like your dad just needed just one more drink?” Fuck, why did he say that? Is wasn’t like him to be petty. Maybe he had too much of Dark’s influence in his system.

Jack’s expression turned unreadable before he just shrugged his shoulders and leaned back on the bed. “I guess I’m really not that different from him after all. At least his addiction didn’t send him to hell.”

Mark moved to stand in front of him, letting his energy flow through the room rather than focusing it only on Jack. Jack propped up on his elbows and looked at Mark intently. “You said earlier that you love me. What does that mean? Do you feel emotions like humans do? Do demons—do they feel emotion?” Mark knew that what he really wanted to ask was whether Dark cared about him or whether he was even capable of that.

“Love has many different forms, Jack. My love for you means that I care more about you than I do about myself sometimes. It means that I want you to be happy forever.”

“Even if it’s not with you?”

Mark swallowed before nodding slowly. It was true. He would give up Jack forever if it meant he was happy. “I would do anything to make you happy, Jack, but the answer is not Dark.”

Jack sat up straighter and looked at Mark from head to toe in a way that almost made the angel blush. “Why do you two look the same? I mean apart from the—“ He motioned to Mark’s hair which was an icy blue color in contrast to the demon’s blood red.

Mark smirked. “You haven’t figured it out?”

Jack looked annoyed but shook his head anyway.

“Well, we are two sides of the same coin, if you will. We’re called identicals. It happens often in the celestial realm when two beings are connected by the same thread of fate.”

“How are you two connected?”

Mark gestured toward Jack and cocked an eyebrow.

“Through me? But you’re not connected to me like he is,” Jack said.

“Not exactly. I didn’t give you this.” Mark picked up Jack’s hand and inspected his palm. It felt hot to the touch and when his finger touched it, Jack’s eyes fluttered shut as Mark felt an intense wave of pleasure flow through the Irishman. Despite his better judgment, he continued to rub slow circles against his palm. Clearing his throat and barely trusting his own voice, Mark continued, “But I am connected to you because you are my charge and I am entrusted with your life.”

“And my death—” Jack interjected, a little breathily. He leaned forward from his seated position on the bed to rest his head against Mark’s stomach, and as Mark continued to rub his hand, he heard him whisper, “Don’t stop.”

“Yes. And your death. Which you seem to have a hard time doing. You’ve died like three times already, and yet here you are.”

Mark felt Jack laugh lightly. “Yeah, well it’s not for lack of tryin’—fuck that feels—”

Mark nodded because he knew _exactly_ how Jack was feeling regardless of him telling him, and even if he couldn’t feel it, he could see the flush in Jack’s cheeks and could almost hear how fast his heart was beating. Mark knew that Jack was thinking about the demon, and it irked him, but yet, he knew this was what Jack needed right now, in this moment.

Jack leaned forward and placed his lips against Mark’s stomach. Mark froze and felt an arousal that was, for the first time, entirely his own. It was a strange feeling. He had always seen humans as being lesser beings, but there was something different about Jack. He was unique in all the cosmos: Mark was sure of that.

Mark had touched humans before; he'd even gotten Jack off in that bar, but this was the first time one was touching _him_ and Mark felt a sensory overload. It was so much more heightened than anything he'd felt before, partly because it was Jack and partly because it felt so _human_.

 

Curious, Mark leaned down and met Jack's lips with his own, so gently that it could barely be called a kiss. In response, Jack pulled him down onto the bed with him and kissed him with a desperation that overshadowed all other emotions. Mark was surprised to find that his own passion nearly matched his as he opened his mouth to taste more of that thing that made Jack distinctly Jack.

 

Mark could feel the Irishman's soul thrumming under his skin, and yet underneath that, he could feel the hold Dark still had on him. Mark wanted to drive it out of him and make him filled with light like he should always have been. He reached his hand under Jack's shirt and raked his short fingernails down Jack's chest, the way he knew Jack had fantasized about. Jack responded like Mark knew he would: with a throaty moan and bucking his hips upward. But still, Mark felt darkness inside him. He needed to get closer to his soul. He dug his nails harder into Jack’s skin, hard enough to break the skin and tried to seep his light inside the open wound.

 

But instead of light, Mark felt the darkness in Jack increase exponentially. It hit him with enough force that he flew backward and hit the wall behind him. He looked up to see Jack, or some form of Jack, staring at him with completely black eyes. His palm was lit with green energy that hummed, nearly audibly, and surrounded Jack.

 

Jack tilted his head to the side and smiled eerily in a way that was not entirely human. “Fuck, it feels so good to be out.” His voice was impossibly deep and garbled, like two voices transposed over one another. “I’ve been waiting forever for a way out, and even if I found it, I wasn’t sure if it would work, but shit, it did. Your little overzealous makeout session with your _charge_ gave me a chance to take over.”

 

“Who are you?” the angel asked, genuinely confused. Was Dark possessing Jack from hell? There was no way. He couldn’t.

 

Jack laughed. “You should know better than to ask questions you don’t want the answer to. Like how you were asking yourself earlier if Jack wanted _you_ or if he was just using you as a fill in for _him_.”

 

Mark nearly shuddered. This was not Jack, at least not the one he knew and loved.  

 

Jack walked over to where Mark was still leaning against the wall. His movements were catlike and smooth, too graceful to be human. In a fluid motion, Jack lifted off his own shirt and ran his fingers down the scratch marks that the angel had left. His eyes fluttered shut as he moaned, digging his own fingernails even deeper into the cuts, causing blood to trickle down his chest.

“You want the answer to that question, Markimoo? Whether Jack wants you? Or whether this is for _him_?” He grabbed his crotch and bit his lip hard enough so that it began to bleed. Laughing manically, he smeared the blood around his face before licking his lips eagerly and smiling at Mark.

 

Mark shook his head and looked away.

 

Jack laughed before sighing dramatically. “Fine, suit yourself. God, I hate this fucking place. What do I have to do to get me and good ol’ Jackaboy out of here?” He began looking around the room like he was searching for something. Suddenly he turned and faced Mark again. “Do you think killing an angel is enough to get me sent back to hell?”

 

Mark turned to run toward the door, but Jack was quicker and he blocked the way. He pushed his glowing palm against Mark’s chest. The dark energy inside Jack began to flood into Mark, so much so that he stumbled onto his knees. He swung his wing to knock Jack off his feet, but Jack grabbed on to it, causing both of them to fall to the ground. As Mark scrambled to stand up, Jack rushed to pin him to the ground, pressing his palm to Mark’s throat and pouring dark energy into him. Mark felt it begin to consume him, driving the light out of him faster than he could replenish.

 

He was going to die down here, killed by the very person he had protected his whole life.

 

But no. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Jack. Jack would never do this if Mark had done his job and protected him from Dark and every other bad thing in the world.

 

“Jack,” he gasped out. Jack laughed and squeezed his throat harder. “Sean, this—isn’t—you.” Jack’s face faltered only slightly.

 

“Fuck, you look so much like _him_ when you’re like this,” Jack said, bending at the waist to lick Mark’s face from jaw to forehead. Mark shuddered and felt his life force begin to slip away from him. In a last ditch effort, he put his hand over Jack’s on his neck and focused his last bit of energy into him.

 

Like he’d been burned, Jack jerked his hand away and clutched the sides of his head. “Why won’t you just _die_!” He was shouting it to himself.

 

Mark gasped for breath and sat up slowly. Jack was still straddling him, a war seemingly raging in his head. Mark didn’t have much to give, but he put his hand on Jack’s chest over his wound and willed him to hear him through the darkness.

 

“I’m here. You are safe.”

 

Jack let out an otherworldly scream before slumping forward against Mark’s chest. Mark caught him and wrapped his arms and wings around his limp form. He ran his fingers through Jack’s hair which was slowly turning back to its natural brown. After several moments, he felt Jack begin to shake and he realized that he was crying.

 

“Shhhh,” Mark said, holding Jack tighter.

 

“I belong in hell,” Jack said, looking up at Mark with human eyes again. “I belong with _him_.”

 

“I’m not going to let that happen.”

 

“What if I want it to?”

 

“You don’t, Sean. I know you.”

 

Jack looked down at Mark’s neck where a dark handprint left over by Jack remained. “You know half of me. The other half belongs to him.”

 

Jack fell asleep soon after, a very human thing to do, a fact which encouraged Mark. When he was sure that Jack was out for the night, he stayed with him, sitting at the edge of his bed so that each time a nightmare surfaced, which it did many times, he could soothe him the way he had done after his mother had died.

 

At some point, Felix entered the room and saw Mark’s neck, still healing from where Jack had tried to kill him. He shook his head.

 

“I don’t think we can save him, Mark. I am so sorry. Please know that this is not your fault.” Felix said, as sincere as Mark had ever seen him.

 

Mark shook his head, refusing to hear him nonetheless. “I’ll become a fallen before I let him go.”

 

Felix looked at Mark sadly. “You’re already halfway there. Don’t sacrifice yourself for him.”

 

Felix left, and Mark felt suddenly very alone. In his sleep, Jack stirred and reached out unconsciously for Mark’s hand. Breathing a sigh of relief, Mark took it and held it like it was his only lifeline, and truly, maybe it was.    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit, this story is over 100 pages long and still not close to being done. I am so invested in this story though, and I promise that in the end, all (or most) of the characters will have closure (if not happiness). Leave a comment if you want! I feed off them like Anti feeds off our fear...
> 
> Also I just joined tumblr not long ago and have like 10 followers so if you guys want to, you are welcome to follow me and I'll follow back... lick-a-boss.tumblr.com
> 
> I love all of you for reading this!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by all the dark and anti stuff that's been happening lately. This story will feature mostly Dark/Jack with a little Jack/Mark and Mark/Dark. Please comment to let me know nice things.


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